A Ugandan court has sentenced Edward Awebwa, 24, a tiktoker to six years in prison for insulting President Yoweri Museveni, First Lady Janet Museveni, and their son Muhoozi Kainerugaba in a TikTok video.
The charges included hate speech and spreading “misleading and malicious” information against the first family, as reported by BBC.
Activist and writer Stella Nyanzi, who is also in exile, faced imprisonment after publishing a critical poem about President Museveni.
President Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, signed a law against hate speech in 2022, which rights groups argue is designed to suppress online freedom of speech.
While the constitutional court later ruled a section of the law penalizing “offensive communication” unconstitutional, Awebwa was charged under the broader law still under challenge.
Ugandan human rights lawyer Michael Aboneka argued that the president and his family should expect criticism from the public.
“Unless they are saying that they are going to arrest every Ugandan for criticizing them at every point,” Aboneka told the BBC Newsday program.
