Controversial academic, Stella Nyanzi has said trashed the Mental Health Bill that is before Parliament, noting that is targeting the opposition so that they can be branded as mentally sick.
Appearing before the Parliamentary Health Committee on Wednesday to give her opinion on the Mental Health Bill that was first tabled in 2004, Nyanzi said 14 years later, many bills have been passed and assented to by the President, but the Mental Health Bill is yet to be passed.
She added that the bill is irrelevant because many Ugandans including MPs are mentally sick.
“Many Ugandans including many of you (MPs) in this room have got mental illness. All of you have got different forms of mental illnesses here,” Nyanzi said, adding that given the chaos MPs went through during the Age Limit debate, they are mentally brutalized and need psychiatric attention.
“You may think that you are drafting the bill for Stella Nyanzi and those at Butabika, but you are also implicated in this,” she said.
Nyanzi finds Clause 10 sub section 2 which states that “where a police officer who arrests a person for a criminal act has reasonable grounds to suspect that the person arrested has a mental illness” irrelevant and aimed at targeting opposition members by arresting them on grounds that they mentally ill.
“This bill is empowering police to come and arrest anybody without a warrant; so think through what you are saying because today it may be me but tomorrow it will be you. As you are all aware, I was diagnosed as a mentally ill person by CID, but when did CID study psychiatry?” Nyanzi said wondered.
She added: “Laws in Uganda can be used to oppress and abuse people just as much as they can be used to legislate properly for the country. Police will use this clause to target people like me, Dr. [Kiiza] Besigye, Lord mayor Erias Lukwago and those who are opposed to government and will take us to Butabika saying we are mentally ill.”
