Feminists on Twitter have added their voices to call on Uganda Police to grant bond to arrested socialite Sheena Bageine.
Bageine who was arrested on Thursday evening spent a night in police cells and is still under incarceration having been denied Police bond despite pleas by her family and lawyers.
She is charged with cyber harassment and cyberstalking arising from her Twitter thread about ‘rapists’.
But feminists, using the hashtag #FreeSheena argue that Police is enabling women abusers by arresting those who are brave enough to call out their abusers.
“Women get raped, No arrests. Women get killed, No arrests. Women get harassed, No arrests. Woman speaks up, Woman Arrested. The police should be ashamed of themselves for using their power to silence us instead of protecting us,” actress Kemiyondo Coutinho wrote on her Twitter.
Renowned writer Rosebell Kagumire related Ms. Bageine’s arrest to that of Makerere Research fellow Dr. Stella Nyanzi who had been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment.
The fellow had been charged, convicted and sentenced over similar charges before the sentence was repealed on Thursday by the High Court.
“The use of Computer misuse act to silence is not an act only Museveni engages in with only target as a Stella Nyanzi, it is being used to silence women using online to name and shame rapists! Police is heavily involved in these threats and the arrests,” Ms. Kagumire tweeted.
A one Kwezi referred to the situation as a case of abusers protecting abusers.
Police in Uganda has over time been called out for abusing human rights especially when trying to control riots and strikes around the country.
Ms. Kwezi praised Bageine for standing up to speak for fellow women who had been abused but had feared to speak up.
“Sheena helped survivors speak up and showed abusers their own shame, the shame that rightly belongs to them, and they hated it. Now abusers are protecting abusers like they always do,” she tweeted.
Several other tweets have been made on the subject matter, all calling on Police to release Ms. Bageine who is also a student of Uganda Christian University.
