Jailed Ugandan academic wins prize for freedom of expression

Ugandan writer and feminist activist Stella Nyanzi has won the 2020 Oxfam Novib/PEN International Award for Freedom of Expression. 

Ms Nyanzi is an academic who campaigns on a variety of issues, from sanitary pads for schoolgirls to gay rights. She has proved a divisive figure in Uganda’s conservative society, where homosexual acts are still illegal.  

In August last year she was sentenced to 18 years in prison for “cyber harassment”, after publishing a poem on Facebook criticising President Yoweri Museveni. In the poem she said she wished the Ugandan president had been burned up by the “acidic pus” in his mother’s birth canal. 

PEN International President Jennifer Clement said in a statement on Friday “Stella Nyanzi has been deemed a criminal by the Ugandan authorities because she has criticised those at the highest echelons of power; though her words might be colourful and shocking to some.” 

She continued that “At PEN we believe unshakeably in the need for writers to be able to criticise, parody, and mock at the highest levels. This award recognises the work she has done for women, civil society, and in the defence of free expression.”

Photo credit: Reuters | James Akena