 with me. Welcome back to the second day of the carousel on the policing and rape conference. This morning we have two very interesting speakers or third speaker who may not make it unfortunately. So we'll be having two speakers this morning. So each presentation will roughly be about 20-25 minutes and then we'll have an opportunity at the end to ask West student. So my first speaker Dr Stella Nianze, she is a Ugandan human rights activist, a medical anthropologist and poet. She's also a political activist who campaigns for women and girls rights as well as the rights of LGBT people. She is most known for her outspoken criticism of the Ugandan government. She's also had her own personal experience of being in prison in the Lucera women's prison in Campala. So she is going to give a wealth of knowledge and experience on on the issues today and we welcome her online. So I will just put Stella on for you now. Hi morning from Stella. Hi, good morning. Can you please share my slides for me or will I try to share? Marie? Do you have them already? Stella, we've got your slides up for you or you can share them yourself. Which is easier? I'm not fussy. Shall I try sharing? Let me try sharing. Can you see this? Yes. Okay, so right. So good morning everybody. I'm honored to participate in this inaugural conference on casserole policy, policing and race. And to sit on a panel, it was initially for three but now for two people entitled prisons, protest and performance. My paper today entitled subverting colonial continualities of casserality through audiovisual links in Uganda is in fact my second offering to the much needed SOAS project that we are participating in. My first contribution to the space was a presentation entitled musings of a decolonial radical queer feminist ex-con about Lucero women prison. And I gave it at the first workshop held on 29th April 2022nd and that particular workshop was called the colonialities of incarceration across the Global South. In those earlier musings I examined my ability to write and publish a book of poems. When I was not only a heavily guarded political prisoner sentenced to 18 months in maximum security prison for writing that was criminalized under charges of cyber harassment and offensive communication. So I wrote a poem and I was charged with cyber harassment and offensive communication to President Sherwin in 1970. But also during my time in prison that time, many of my writings, my scribblings and notebooks were routinely confiscated and destroyed by prison wardresses. So the release of my book collection of poems a few days before my acquittal was delightful evidence of dissident prisoners abilities, okay of our dissident prisoners ability because it's my experience I'm talking about, to defiantly write as a form of protest against unjust selective restrictions to specifically political prisoners of conscience. A number of other prisoners were actually allowed to write, were allowed access to library materials and books. In my case all these were confiscated and also when gifts were brought by visitors to the prison of either a notebook or a pen or even readings they were taken away from me and withheld during the entirety of my prison time. So the politics of my practice as a knowledge creator of knowledge about Uganda's casserality is to write against the prisons drawing mainly from my lived experiences and so I enter this space this morning yet again not only as an academic scholar so thank you for the introduction with a PhD and years of published academic research but also activist against the injustices meted out to prisoners and so next time when I'm being introduced please include prisoner, activist against prison systems and I think that I'm an activist now against the injustices meted out to prisoners and enabled by the asymmetries of power between the institutions of the judiciary including courts prisons and the police on one hand and prisoners whether they are remanded convicted appealing conviction or condemned to life sentence so most importantly today I speak with the confidence of an insider because I'm an ex-convict. I have been detained at least 20 times in the last five years in different police stations mainly because of dissident peaceful protests against various forms of state repression oppressive abuse of state power and systemic failures of government I show there one of the pictures of my arrest during a peaceful protest by booted police officers without face most times after these peaceful protests I was released after a few days on police bond without church along with several other peaceful protesters or court bail was given to me for charges that were later dropped and the cases dismissed for want of evidence so that's the first player of my engagement with prison systems in Uganda as a detained peaceful protester I also want to add that for 33 days between 7th April 2017 and 10th May 2017 I was a remand prisoner at Uganda's only maximum security prison for women called Luzira women's prison on charges of cyber harassment and offensive communication against president Mosevani because of a facebook post in which I metaphorically called him a pair of buttocks it was during this imprisonment that state prosecutors applied to court for permission to subject me to involuntary mental examination indeed during my first week in prison two government psychiatrists attempted to commence psychiatric evaluations on me inviting my boldest form of protest not only did I fight off the intrusion of these state operatives within the prison but I also petitioned the constitutional court of Uganda to provide interpretation of the old colonial relic of a law upon which the state prosecutors relied to apply to court to subject me to involuntary mental exam the mental treatment act came into force in 1964 two years after independence as a revised version of the pre-independence mental treatment ordinance of 1935 and I just want at this point to say that we see government psychiatrists relying on a colonial law that was created to govern and discipline and penalize anti-colonial Ugandans who are writing critically of colonizers during the time and their writings in order to be criminalized and penalized but also in order to deter other Ugandans from participating in these activities were then criminalized using the 1935 treatment act which is the same act that these colonial state operatives in the post-independence moment in 2017 entered the Luzira Women Prison Court to try again and subject me to involuntary mental examination so not only did I petition the constitutional court for interpretation thereby holding my subjection to involuntary up to today but furthermore I'm among the few Ugandans who interacted with and gave input to the parliamentary committee that reviewed the amended present-day mental health treatment act and I share this to show that I think my experiences within prison contributed to growing and further developing me as a dissident protester against colonial continuities of subjugation within the prisons today so the final evidence as an insider to the prison systems that many conference delegates can afford to examine and write about objectively because of their outsideness is the 475 days between 2nd November 2018 and 20th February 2020 that I spent as a remanded convicted and appellant prisoner of Luzira Women Prison on 2nd charges of cyber harassment and offensive communication to President Museveni and his family I was sentenced to 18 months when found guilty because of a birthday poem I wrote criticizing the repressive corrupt dictatorship in power the events of my sentencing will form the basis of this presentation because they highlight how as a prisoner I was agentic and I utilized the prison grounds the prison officials prison technology and prison injustices exercised in collusion with the triumph magistrate assigned to my court case to perform a subversion of the very prison system that sought to exert a continuity of colonial injustices of casserality upon me and so one may pose to ask how does a mere lone prisoner subvert the powerful colonial continuities of violence subjugation abuse of rights to a fair trial institutionalized and given legitimacy when a magistrate of court colludes with the prison structures like how is it even thinkable how can a lone woman who was found guilty the day before subvert the powerful structures of state blindly filling the vain wishes of a 35-year-old military dictatorship in my case I was a political prisoner this time being sentenced for offending the president this was one of the most politicized criminal court cases in Uganda so moving beyond the framing of prisoners as victims beholden to a powerful oppressive casserole system and building upon my history of dissidents within the courts I mean I discuss challenging the torture of prisoners through my own torture when I was bitten by prison wardresses leading to the miscarriage of my baby and I was able to challenge this through the formal structures of applying to the Uganda Human Rights Council I also went on to challenge through public court away from the former judicial system by writing heavily against the injustices practices out practiced in courts when I was released and my Facebook timeline became people's court where we tried judicial and prison officials who are involved in my own lived experiences of torture as a prisoner and so I build on this and I explore the different ways in which I subverted prison authority and simultaneously desecrated the temple of justice sentencing me for the audacity to write metaphorically write graphically and write critically about dictator Joeri Museveni I will turn briefly to the audio visual link technology that was first launched on 17th august 2016 in Uganda by the then chief justice honorable justice but Kato Rebe because this for me is a state instituted innovation of technology to continue asserting the authority and power of the prison system in Uganda the innovation was greatly hailed for its ability to enable courts to take evidence to receive testimony from vulnerable children and elders and other endangered minors including whistleblowers the audio visual link technology was envisaged to reduce the costs and wastage of time associated with hearing court cases to conclusion thereby eventually putting an end to the delays and backlog of court cases with funding and technological support from UNICEF the judiciary installed closed circuit cameras connected to TV monitors huge screens in the high courts of a number of districts including Kampala, Gulu, Fort Porto, Umbale, Embarara, Arowa and Masendi so the giving or receiving of evidence through electronic means without a pass on physically appearing in court was to be governed by a statutory instrument this is important called the Judicature audio visual rules number 26 of 2016 while scholars have mainly praised the effects of this innovation particularly in the COVID-19 lockdown moment I as an ex-convict I am appalled that technology technological innovation which was created to protect vulnerable people such as children was appropriated by the judiciary in collusion with Uganda prison services to violate my constitutional rights to a fair trial most political prisoners who have been tried using the audio visual link technologies were male politicians and male political activists from a range of opposition political parties several other criminals tried because of emergency health conditions during COVID-19 lockdown also appeared on audio visual links always the postures of the prisoners presented through audio visual link were humble submissive subdued and well disciplined giving the indication of pure reform and rehabilitation due to the time spent in prison I share right here a slide with Bobby Wine a leading presidential candidate in the recently concluded elections in Uganda and one can tell that although he is a dissident in all ways an opposition activist he is acting all subdued and disciplined as if he wouldn't harm a fly then enter Stella Nyanze that's myself on the day of her sentencing I strategically stripped in protest rapidly jiggled my bare breasts repeatedly raised my middle fingers and poetically held insults against the injustices of Uganda's courts during my sentencing to 18 months imprisonment because of a poem that I wrote was deemed a form of cyber harassment of President Museveni and his family I share because of the of the conditions of was it safe safe safe usage that I shared for this conference I can only share my bare breasts but alongside these I was hurling I haven't shared a picture of my bare breasts but I can only share me and my bra and my mouth open hurling insults and profanities at the justice system alongside this my middle fingers were raised I threw water at the cameras and I called the magistrate trying me a number of not very good metaphors alongside my activity in a male prison for condemned and convicted male prisoners and unbeknownst to me in the courtroom my my friends family and members of my political opposition party were excited and responding to each of the hulls the hurled insults I was making and alongside this was excitement sitting up from their chairs cheering and cheering booing the chief magistrate and unbeknownst to me in that moment because I was secluded and isolated in the all-male prison for convicted and condemned criminals in Uganda one of the members of the court one of my friends perhaps one of my family perhaps a stranger even carried a bottle of water and threw it at the magistrate who was captured on the court cameras and relayed to all TV stations which were covering my sentencing in Uganda and the picture the image of the bottle an empty water bottle hitting the magistrates head in my absence from court was for me one of the most delighted delightful forms of subversion so this protest was live streamed directly through audio visual links from Maksun Bay Prison Mozira to Bugander Road Chief Magistrates Court and simultaneously broadcast all over Uganda Africa and the rest of the world by local journalists and foreign correspondents present in court expectably I received backlash from moralists jurists staff of Uganda prison services and regime apologists in Uganda however for me it was important to contest against continued colonial subjugation and systemic systemic violation of my constitutional rights to a fair hearing why was I as a remanded woman prisoner driven under heavy armed escort without my consent which is a condition for utilizing the audio visual links a condition that is written in the statutory instrument I referred to earlier why was I driven from Mozira women prison to an all-male maximum security prison for convicted and condemned capital offenders instead of being physically taken to court for my sentencing as is stipulated in the constitution of Uganda the expectation for prisoners of mandatory cooperation and fearful submission to casserole authority is a legacy of colonial practice the total violation of prisoners rights to informed consent to judicial processes enacted in collusion with decorated prison staff never goes question because colonized subjects lacked voice to speak back at their colonizers current weaponization of courts contemporary weaponizationing a weaponization of the court system to silence quash and deter resistance of colonized Africans is a colonial relic practiced unwittingly by Kada judicial officers appointed in the service of Museveni's unjust punitive totalitarian regime in Uganda and so to to counter the threats that I was receiving from prison officials and a number of visitors who visited me after my sentencing and the display of my subversive and dressing and profanities in court I instructed my lawyers to write to the judicial service commission this is the last picture that I'm sharing to write to the judicial services commission of Uganda and complain about the improper conduct and abuse of power that in my view was enacted by the magistrate assigned to my court trial because of time oh I'm not doing too well for time so perhaps I will end here and hopefully have given some material that can lead to the discussion of possibilities of subverting colonial continuities of cassirality through audiovisual links in in Uganda and I'm open to discuss the contents of the judicial audiovisual link statutory instrument because part of my response to people who say what I did was partake in criminal subversion is to say that actually the court system and the prison services the structures violated the very regulations that created the audiovisual link system in Uganda and what I hope to do is to continue writing defiantly in ways that speak against the power of the prison systems in Uganda thank you very much and thank you for the opportunity thank you so much such a compelling wonderful way of you know subverting systems that we were discussing all of yesterday in the conference that how we recognize all of these injustices and each and every one of us thinking in our minds of the different ways that we can resist and disrupt these continuities historical continuities for the global self. Now we want to move on Dr Sela we're going to have some questions towards the end so we just ask you to wait around until the question time now we're going to move on to Dr Annie Finks another interesting scholar she is an independent scholar and artist and a visiting research fellow in sociology at Goldsmiths University of London she brings an interdisciplinary and a visual archival approach to to the issues of colonial violence and the colonizing geographies of Kenya and historic Palestine so we are really looking forward to the presentation this morning which will be a visual approach and Dr Finks I'm going to play it out did you want to say a few words before or should I just go ahead and play just so you know you're on mute go ahead I don't need to speak before I'll speak at the end we'll play this now thank you back in after a minute thank you do you want to share share a few words before we go into questions yeah maybe just a bit explanation I mean like Stella I was part of an earlier workshop with the unit and I spoke together with Wembley Kimmari and we had to use the paper on the castrol legacy punishment personality and the legacy that set the colonial punishment in Nairobi in which we sort of developed a match of practices that that have been embedded in through the colonial system into current policing and incarceration practices and this work because the visual is very much part of my practice so this work on Palestine in Kenya came out of a series of exhibitions firstly on Palestine then I took on Palestine to Nairobi and I had made work supported by Wembley Kimmari in Matare which is an informal community in East Nairobi and then I accepted on Palestine in conversation with Matare originally as an exhibition at Goldsmith and then as this as hauntings I think my main I won't say very much about it but my main emphasis in this work is really to look at what has been emptied out through the colonial through colonial violence and how the material tells us not only of that history but also of its presence in the now how it's manifested people's lives and the conditions of both the material environment and the social I don't need to say that's great it's a conversation. Thank you so much Dr. Randy I'm going to open the floor up to questions now but I wanted to say that I was struck by two things in the presentation firstly called challenging silences and you know we like to fill the air with words and just how challenging it was to to look at the photographs and secondly the other thing that struck me and the photographs spoke for themselves but the second thing that struck me was how stunningly beautiful the natural environment was and you could not believe that so much bloodshed and so much pain existed in those natural environments and it caused you to want to look back at the history you know so it's so firmly grounded in history you know so I got so much from it but I just want to see if there's anyone who has questions. Thank you Dr. Randy I really enjoyed that it was I like what you're saying about environments have been emptied out when you were taking pictures in more sort of urban settings and ones with people what were you thinking and how does this sort of being emptied out or legacy to colonial violence yeah just some more thoughts particularly in like the urban one open pictures. Um well differently in Palestine and in Nairobi in Palestine the the urban is a manifestation of colonial violence so the image of the boys with the police you know just through the through the archway tells you everything you need to know about um the colonial control of Palestine and Palestinian space so in that sense the urban isn't isn't is a narrative a parent of historical and current conditions um in Kenya it's slightly different except that I'm working in a in a neighborhood in Isnarobi that was um that has a history of Mammal that has a history of colonial violence and that has a history of state neglect and so um I don't know what more can I say really like it's in them what I'm interested in those spaces is what the material tells us about about both the historical and the conditions that living like now and how they how they inform and construct each other thank you thank you I have another question so this is a question actually for Dr Stella that are we able to also ask those questions now Dr Stella are you hearing us loud and clear yes okay I wanted to say thank you so much for your moving and generative presentation the question that I had was about that moment when you used the cctv in the courts to kind of subvert the structure I was thinking about call and response when you were explaining how that went and and the call and response action of you using your body and your voice and the emphasis you have described as the ability to be rude elsewhere and this vision that you said um unknown to you all of these people elsewhere in their homes cheering in the prison cheering even in the courtroom for someone to throw the bottle at the um judge I was thinking about the level of trust it takes to kind of do the call and hope for a response I was wondering if that dynamic is how you think of the power of subversion or is it more more of an individual act right um difficult question thank you for the question um um so so you're you're making assumptions that because you say to me in that moment and you said it really slow as you started in that moment in court now in that moment I wasn't in court um I was in a male prison with men who hadn't seen woman body for years depending on how long their convictions were their sentences were I was surrounded mainly by male prison wardresses um I think I wasn't expecting a response part of my rage at the violation of the statute or the instrument governing this new technology was how it was violated by the court yeah and I was thinking nobody explained to me what the procedures are nobody showed me where the camera is nobody showed me where the microphone is I don't know if anybody is out there I knew that the magistrate sentencing me was there because I could see her face when I began screaming you know fuck the justice system fuck the courts excuse the German this is very small German um compared to the expletives that I used but when I began saying that my screen was blanked my volume was taken away so I wasn't sure what was happening throwing the water in the direction of what seemed to be like the technology man was for me to test where is where is the person controlling what presentation I have and so I wasn't expecting any response I was just being defiant in I thought I can't go out they're going to sentence me I can't go out silently I have appealed to the constitutional court I have appealed to the Ugana Human Rights Commission I have appealed through public media I have appealed I had a number of appeals during my court and nobody is responding so rather than rely on the institutions I'm going out with one last bang and I was pleasantly pleasantly surprised when I was thrown in solitary confinement and 10 days later I received the first visitor who asked me why did you show the whole of Uganda your naked breasts why were you jiggling your breasts in court who does that and I thought wow the whole of Uganda saw this and during the same moment I heard about how could you instruct people to hit the magistrate with a bottle so I don't condone violence and I think that magistrates and judges must be protected at their places of work however I didn't instruct anybody to do this that is how powerful the random acts of madness because I'm called a mad woman that is how powerful they were I was thinking how do I speak one last truth at the time of my sentence if I've been denied voice and audience access to my lawyers I mean I am isolated really isolated and surrounded by everything strange it is beautiful there was a response I understand at every moment when I paused to drink some water or catch my breath there was cheering and cheering and raising of hands and singing of songs in the courtroom as the magistrate read the trial I mean the footage is there and online if people want to see it but I think for me that then then then while I thought I was acting as an individual the generative power of community helped make this subversive had I done this alone and there was no counter there was no complimentary action I think it wouldn't have been as powerful I had been threatened with opening of new charges around contempt of court but the sort of backlash that the prison spokesperson met in response to these publicized threats was amazing and I find out all of this maybe a year later when I am released from prison because again I wasn't aware the only indication of of of ah there must have been action was two women who were arrested along with four men in the courtroom because of the chaos and disorderly disruption that happened after the magistrate received the bottle on her head and they say to me it was powerful it was glorious yes we're in prison but there is no way to speak to these courts in ways for them to hear I haven't answered your question properly but I've tried I hope it suffices yes yes thank you um I have a question that I'd like to throw up to both women um I have been so inspired by both of your um courage um Dr Nancy um be able to stand up and to speak out in in that kind of environment it takes a lot of courage um what causes you to have this this this mental resilience what what what keeps you going I'm a researcher and there are times that you know you get a little bit down and you say you know am I um you know is what I'm doing reaching others is it being successful what keeps you going what what motivates you to continue especially in such challenging and um what what would you call it um a politically charged politically charged topics could I um start could we start with you and Dr Sphinst and then I will go go back to um Dr Stella um thank you for your question um I don't know that I think of it as being courageous I think of it as being inevitable and necessary so um and part of that has to do with my own biography in a sense like the work on the work that I've done in the last few years on Palestine comes out of 20 years of activism and academic research into the conditions of colonial control and um part of my interest because because the camera is part of my being like it's always in my hands um it's like I'm and because I'm interested in the space it's going to be emptied out because to me they manifest colonial violence um I just take the meetings I mean there have been moments in Palestine where I've kind of gone uh oh I'm going to get out of here oh you know um where I've been kind of a little bit busy but I've never yeah and the work in Kenya is slightly different because I was ah my biography I was born in Kenya at the beginning in the early days of the state of emergency which is state of emergency my parents were refugees so it's a complicated history and a complicated set of relationships that I started I've always been aware of I've always been kind of concerned with um and my family left Kenya just before independence but it was at the high court hearing of a malmal case against the British Government for compensation for this treatment and the detention camps that I understood that my work in both Kenya and Palestine because at the time there was a mass um hunger strike in the prisons of Paladins and prisons in Israel and I was sitting listening to the elders speak about their experience in the detention camps and I understood that in both Kenya and Palestine this was about the state of emergency so then I spent a number of years investigating the state of emergency materially so I went to Kenya I went to the sites I met people um and in a way it was kind of like it was time it was time that I began this work it was time and courage I don't know necessity like it was it was necessary for me to do this thank you thank you very much dr Alec um I I'm very glad that you gave gave us that history because I felt I could see that love for the country that came out in your photographs oh thank you um dr Stella right so um ah video okay so I um I again I mean I think for me um echoing very much what Anise said um um it's not courage but in terms of methodology I really would have loved to have a camera in prison because again the assumption that what we see I think as curated selves of prisoners when they appear in public we are cleaned up we are smelling nice we are dressed in our dress we've probably had breakfast from visitors and the what one sees when prisoners incarcerated prisoners show up in public through the court system or hospital or upon release is a very small very very small part of what actually happens I would have loved to have cameras in the prison cells when I was beaten up and totally totally out of it and when I was so discouraged because a whole book of poems had been confiscated and burnt in my presence or when we were grieving of a prisoner inmate who died because they stopped taking their antiretrovirals or when a woman gave birth at night on the floor because the prison wardresses on duty were sleeping and didn't come to open the ward um but in those moments it wasn't so glorious and dissident and defiant but it was very much about oh god like totally beaten totally giving up um and and some of the work I would love to go back into the prison and do necessitates sneaking a camera sneaking a camera into that place because it's powerful but also colonial surveillance allowed the prisoners to have access to all the the information they wanted about us to photograph prisoners but neighbor for us the prisoners to do the same in terms of courage for me so it's not courage it's it's very much I think the last word that that that Annie gave was it's it's necessity for me for example in that courtroom I was thinking how how do I go out silently how do I just bow out I can't like I must do something I remember I was in my periods and I tried to bend over and raise my skirt but I'm too short and the the lectern covered me and I thought oops um and and I was just trying at pulling at straws how do I speak back when all my power my my power relied on having the people in the courtroom how do I do something back it was resistance it was defiance it was dissidence it was innovative it was experimental sometimes it's flopped totally it flopped and invited beatings for me um and and and there wasn't courage because for me there wasn't an alternative the alternative would be for colonial violence to win for for the dictatorship to win and that was not acceptable and and so it's only much later because you said um what gives you this mental resilience how do you know if what you're doing is is successful um especially in such politically charged environments I think in my case there's no alternative but to do something in my case and I'm glad that some of of these things went well but there are also some regrettable actions like when I spoke out against beating of prisoners and I was bitten and I lost my child there is no courage or glory in that and they'll never be redressed so what gives me courage and resilience is those those violences that are written on me in my womb on my body in my lineage that are then written out of the record I think they give me a rage and necessary rage and necessary anger to keep going so is that good enough thank you so it's so inspiring to hear both of you ladies speak and I know that we have left here you know charged up ready to to work towards our goals our own activism is there any more questions yeah I have a question if that's okay for Annie it relates actually to Gabriel's previous question your reflections on the urban as colonial violence and I noticed in your video that lots of the images were of homes or dwellings and I wondered if you would be able to expand a little bit on carcerality in relation to colonial architectures or or logics of domesticity if I was right to pick up on that from from your video yes sure um I'll talk about Nairobi because it's more visually kind of obvious to me so latare was built as a had been kind of constructed and then was undone and then over years people have basically built their own dwellings you know they they're vulnerable they're precarious they're made of cardboard and fabric and it's a ward and they're very vulnerable and then in other parts of East Nairobi um of Eastlands um there are and you saw some of these images there are some houses dwellings that were built by the colonial administration to house the workers from Nairobi men single men and so they were constructed as single people dwellings and now Nairobians are extending them with Mapati extensions to try and turn them into family dwellings um and there's other parts of East Nairobi that I don't know so well where the colonial administration constructed city garden garden communities like you know well I know them from Australia um where dwellings were built around you know a central open open air space but in Eastlands um that's kind of what you encounter so in Matari itself it's a it's an informal community built by the people who live there and they've been coming to Matari in ways since the 1950s from all parts of Kenya and in uh it's different in Palestine so in in the old city of Palestine the old city of Jerusalem you've got this ancient construction um which is divided which is policed which is surveilled will be Arab that the Palestinian parliament is under constant surveillance and it's a divided it's a divided city with newly built extended community to the west and an increasingly enclosed Palestinian community to the east is that thank you so much thank you I think we have time for one more question any more questions you know we just want to thank Dr Stella and I would like I would like to thank Dr Stella personally thank you so much very nice to see you again thank you very much it's an honor for me to share space with you again and uh shall I should I ever visit Matari maybe I will look for those images yeah sure you'll find them I'll be there and thanks to the School of Law for this I think amazingly rich and necessary project it's an intervention that we need