‘I Refuse to Be Repentant’: The Woman Challenging Uganda’s Ruler – The New York Times

As many readers are aware, our law firm acts on behalf of the opposition politician Bobi Wine, whose pro-democracy movement has suffered greatly at the hands of dictator Yoweri Museveni.

Amid the rapidly declining state of affairs for human rights and basic civil rights in Uganda, our blog plans to begin sharing more news and analysis out of the country as we believe this is an area of the world deserving of greater attention and concern.

Recently, reporting in the New York Times, Abdi Latif Dahir published an extensive profile of courageous Ugandan activist Stella Nyanzi, whose commitment and dedication to fighting for human rights is something to behold:

“We can laugh when we are liberated from Museveni,” she said of the 75-year-old president, once the darling of Western democracy advocates whose rule has devolved into outright autocracy.

“Please be bad for the sake of the cause,” she exhorted the activists, and with an impish grin added, “And don’t get caught while being bad.”

Ms. Nyanzi, 45, has in recent years become one of the most potent foes of Mr. Museveni, who has governed the East African nation for 34 years. With over 212,000 followers on Facebook, Ms. Nyanzi mixes profanity and bawdy humor with razor-sharp political insights in both English and Luganda to taunt the president and his family and agitate for sociopolitical and economic change. (…)

“They say I am reckless; they want me to silence myself, to edit my rudeness,” she said. “I am an academic, not a politician. I want the issues flagged out there, and if I lose a few supporters in the process, then perhaps the issues are much more important.”

Read more here.