TikToker jailed for 32 months for insulting Uganda’s president
A 21-year-old Ugandan has become the latest TikTok user to be imprisoned for creating a video deemed insulting to President Yoweri Museveni.
Emmanuel Nabugodi appeared in court for sentencing on Monday, after pleading guilty to four charges, including hate speech and spreading malicious information about the president. He was sentenced to 32 months in prison.
Nabugodi, who is known for sharing comedic content with his 20,000 followers, made a video portraying a mock trial of Museveni, in which he called for the president to be publicly flogged.
Human rights organizations have often raised concerns about the restrictions on free speech in Uganda, claiming that President Museveni, in power since 1986, does not tolerate criticism. In July, Edward Awebwa was sentenced to six years in prison on similar charges related to a TikTok post. Three other individuals are currently awaiting trial for content posted on the platform.
When handing down Nabugodi’s sentence, Stellah Maris Amabilis, the chief magistrate of the court in Entebbe, said he was not remorseful and the sentence would help prevent social media attacks against people including the person of the president.
“This court hopes that by the time the convict leaves prison, he would have learnt that abusing people in the name of getting content is bad,” she said.
She added that he had the right to appeal against the sentence within 14 days.
He was convicted under a controversial amendment in 2022 to the Computer Misuse Act.
It made it illegal to “write, send, or share any information through a computer, which is likely to ridicule, degrade, or demean another person, group of persons, a tribe, an ethnicity, a religion or gender”.
In its human rights report on Uganda last year, the US State Department said the “authorities used this law to intimidate internet users from criticizing government policies”.
Rights groups also regularly denounce the Ugandan authorities over violations of human rights and the freedom of expression.
In 2022, award-winning Ugandan author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija was charged with two counts of “offensive communication” after making unflattering remarks about the president and his son on Twitter.
He fled the country to Germany after spending a month in jail, where he said he had been tortured.
