Ugandans show solidarity with academic Stella Nyanzi over 'cyber harassment' charge

Ugandans have voiced their support for Stella Nyanzi, a controversial university scholar, who was summoned today (7 March) by Uganda's police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on charges of "cyber harassment and computer misuse".

The order comes after the academic published a number of posts on social media platform Facebook in which she accused First Lady Janet Museveni of not caring about poor Ugandan girls who missed school or dropped out for lack of sanitary pads.

Museveni, 68, has been the education minister since June 2016.

"Today, at 10:00AM, I am going to battle the state's interrogators at the CID headquarters in Kibuli. They are investigating my posts on social media, in a case of alleged Offensive Communication and Cyber Harassment," Nyanzi explained in a Facebook post on 7 March.

Following the announcement of her interrogation, several social media users took to Twitter to show solidarity with the academic.

A small crowd of supporters also gathered outside the CID headquarters in the capital, Kampala, to show support for the academic, including opposition MP Betty Nambooze.

Nambooze is quoted by BBC as saying that Nyanzi should be rewarded for up for speaking up for poor Ugandan girls and not interrogated. According to local media, the MP was barred from meeting embattled Nyanzi at the CID headquarters.

In one of her controversial Facebook posts, Nyanzi wrote: "Women's month compels me to speak again against the shamelessness with which Janet Kataaha Museveni declared in the house of parliament that Uganda government lacks money to provide poor girls with sanitary pads so that they don't miss school during their menstruation."

She the alleged: "She is not only wife to dictator Yoweri Museveni who lied [to] poor Ugandans during his presidential campaigns about giving sanitary pads to their daughters, she is also the dry-eyed beneficiary of nepotism as the Minister of Education."

The authorities said the post hinges on "offensive communication and cyber harassment".

Uganda's ruler for 31 years, Museveni, now 72, is said to be planning to transfer power to his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba, a major general in the Ugandan military.