Dr. Stella Nyanzi, the spitfire academic and rights advocate

In a Facebook post sure to echo across social media, she said that she decided to decamp after detained writer Kakwenza Rukirabashaija was abducted from his home two weeks ago.

“I knew it was time to beat it and flee (yet again). I refuse to be gagged. I refuse to be silenced! Critical writers must never be threatened merely for writing critically about brutal abusers of power flourishing under dictator Museveni,” Nyanzi said in a post.

Stella Nyanzi and children at the airport Pulse Live Uganda

Nyanzi, a human rights activist with an unerring instinct for the jugular, said that she breathed a “heavy sigh of relief” upon the plane taking off to Germany and, ultimately, exile.

She said she was relieved because this time she made something of a clean getaway compared to when authorities attempted to take her off a loaded plane the last time, she fled the country.

This time, Nyanzi reportedly departed with all her children, indicating that she will be in Germany for a longer stay.

This is the second time in about two years that Nyanzi has fled the country claiming that her freedoms were being abridged and that she was in mortal danger.

In February 2021, Nyanzi exiled herself to Kenya.

The Nyanzi family is off to Germany Pulse Live Uganda

She reportedly left by bus, disguised as a banana seller to evade the unblinking eyes of security agencies at the border. Thereafter, she moved to Germany before returning to the country.

In April 2021, Nyanzi said she had been receiving anonymous phone calls characterised by threats to her person and so she had no other option but to flee the country.

Nyanzi has had more than her fair share of run-ins with the government, having been sentenced to 18 months in prison for “cyber harassment” regarding her online insults of President Museveni and his family in 2018.