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A Ugandan activist has been charged with computer-related crimes for criticizing the government on Facebook:
Stella Nyanzi, one of Uganda's most controversial academics and activists, appeared in court Monday, after being arrested and charged Friday with cyber harassment and the misuse of a computer, for "shaming" the government.
Nyanzi's latest run-in with the 31-year-old regime of President Yoweri Museveni began with a fight for free sanitary pads for school-age girls. "She's the one person who has dared to come out strongly in the country and say what many have feared to say many, many times," said Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, an LGBT rights activist, shortly after leaving the court house.
During the 2016 elections, Museveni and wife, Janet, promised to provide free pads to poor young girls across the country. [...] The elections passed; Museveni won. Earlier this year, Janet Museveni told the country's parliament the promise of free sanitary pads wasn't going to happen because the country was facing a tough economic climate. Nyanzi was furious. She decided if the government wasn't going to do it, she would give poor girls sanitary pads. So she started a crowdfunding campaign and she also unleashed a torrent of criticism toward Museveni, his wife and his supporters. Her criticisms flowed into her Facebook timeline. They were always pointed and sometimes profane. In one of them, she writes that she refuses to call the president's wife "Mama Janet," as most Ugandas do[.]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @03:37PM (3 children)
I would advise you not to make light of potentially losing core rights in the US.
Unfortunately, the slipper slope does exist, but it only travels in one direction: rapidly to authoritarianism.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:33PM
I don't take it lightly at all. But I think we're already sliding down the slippery slope. The difference is in our perspectives. You think you are still safely able to accelerate away from the black hole. I'm saying we have already crossed the event horizon and don't quite realize it just yet. It's just an opinion. But it is my opinion.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday April 13 2017, @06:21PM
Unfortunately, the slipper slope does exist, but it only travels in one direction
Interesting claim! Would that be because slippers are also called "go-aheads", because they fall off if you walk backwards? And then there is the term "flip-flops", another sign we may be on this slope! But seems to go both ways? I just heard that Drumfth has flipped to the "NATO is no longer obsolete" view. The downward trend continues when we realize that "zori" is the word for the slippers in Japan, "sandals" may also apply, the "between the toe" ones are called "thongs" as well, which brings us back to Miss Universe and Trump, and Russia, with urine. And we have not even gotten to the incline of bathroom slippers, bedroom slippers, and especially Bunny Slippers [photobucket.com]!!!
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday April 13 2017, @10:19PM
The U.S. government started to do something similar, but thought better of it.
/article.pl?sid=17/04/07/0415242 [soylentnews.org]