KAMPALA – Convicted Makerere University Researcher Dr. Stellah Nyanzi has gone to the High Court seeking to quash an 18-months-jail term that was handed to her by Buganda Road court for insulting the person of the President and that of his late mother Esteri Kokundeka.
Dr Nyanzi through her lawyer Isaac Ssemakadde has listed ten grounds in which she asked the High court to base on to release her from prison.
Among the grounds Nyanzi states that she was handed an illegal and inappropriate sentence by her worship Gladys Kamasanyu whom throughout her appeal she accuses of bias and failure to correctly evaluate prosecution’s evidence adduced against her.
She faults the magistrate for failing to accord her the necessary facilities to compel the attendance of witnesses, and thereby infringed on her right to a fair hearing thus abusing rules regarding audio-visual proceedings during her sentencing on August 2, 2019.
Nyanzi further complains of several procedural errors committed by the lower court magistrate when she allowed her prosecution on a charge that was incurably defective, unacceptably vague, bad in law, and barred by law.
Nyanzi was found guilty of cyber harassment when in September last year she posted a loutish poem on her official face book while describing the genitalia of President Museveni mother.
The court found her poem vulgar and immoral in line to the accepted African cultural standards as it cannot be publicly discussed and hence sent her to jail.
The contentious post which was also displayed on a large screen during trial was posted by Dr Stella Nyanzi on September 16, 2018, on her official facebook page; a day after President Museveni celebrated his birthday.
