Category Archives: Human rights

Rwanda : Paul Kagame, le président prêt à tout pour le pouvoir

La journaliste britannique Michela Wrong publie un ouvrage sans complaisance sur le président rwandais. Un ouvrage pour lequel elle a recueilli une somme impressionnante de témoignages sur la violence exercée par cet homme depuis plus de 30 ans.

Michela Wrong signe un portrait sans concession du président rwandais Paul Kagame. Un portrait qui balaie près d’un demi-siècle d’histoire de cet homme devenu un acteur central de la politique africaine, depuis son exil ougandais jusqu’à son omniprésidence rwandaise, sa soif de pouvoir et sa détermination à se maintenir au sommet et à ne supporter aucun obstacle sur sa route. Michela Wrong, journaliste britannique parcourt l’Afrique depuis plus de 30 ans. Elle a pu rencontrer de nombreux acteurs de cette ascension.

En lisant votre livre, on a le sentiment que le monde entier s’est trompé pendant près de 30 ans sur cet homme ?

Au Rwanda, les opposants ou ses anciens alliés, ceux qui ont commencé le combat avec lui, parlent de Paul Kagame comme un “président par accident”. Ce n’est pas le sauveur qu’il aime incarner, ce n’était pas lui le chef ou le fondateur de son mouvement, le FPR. À l’origine, il y a un groupe d’hommes, essentiellement des anglophones rwandais venus d’Ouganda où ils étaient en exil. Paul Kagame a réussi à s’imposer progressivement en faisant le vide autour de lui. La plupart de ceux qui l’accompagnaient au début ont été marginalisés , emprisonnés, contraints à l’exil ou ils ont disparu dans des conditions mystérieuses quand ils n’ont pas été abattus.

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Commémorations 2023 — 29ème anniversaire Journée internationale de réflexion sur le génocide des Tutsis au Rwanda en 1994

Message du Secrétaire général pour 2023

En cette Journée internationale de réflexion sur le génocide des Tutsis au Rwanda en 1994, nous pleurons la mort de plus d’un million d’enfants, de femmes et d’hommes, qui ont péri durant cent jours d’horreur, il y a 29 ans. Nous honorons la mémoire des victimes, en grande majorité des Tutsis, mais aussi des Hutus et d’autres personnes qui s’opposaient au génocide.

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‘Hotel Rwanda’ hero Paul Rusesabagina returning home to San Antonio.

Paul Rusesabagina, who hid more than 1,000 potential victims of genocide in Rwanda in 1994, has come home to San Antonio. 

Kidnapped and imprisoned for 2½ years by a Rwandan regime lambasted by the European Union for its human rights abuses, Rusesabagina, 68, was released last weekend and landed Wednesday afternoon at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. From there, he was to enter Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

“They have LANDED!” Kathleen Tobin Krueger, wife of the late Ambassador Robert Krueger and a close friend of the Rusesabagina family, said in a text message just before 4 p.m.

At BAMC, he’ll be cared for in a facility known for its treatment of former prisoners of war and hostages. Its patients have included three Americans held captive for five years by rebels in Colombia and WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was released in December from a Russian penal colony where she was held on drug charges.

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Rwanda has to investigate killings of opposition members

On this International Right to Truth Day, I want justice for my colleagues who were killed or disappeared while fighting for a truly democratic Rwanda.

Today, we observe the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. One purpose of this important annual observance, as stated by the United Nations, is to “pay tribute to those who have devoted their lives to, and lost their lives in, the struggle to promote and protect human rights for all”. The list of such people is long in my country, Rwanda. It includes members of opposition groups, independent activists and journalists, among many others.

While all those who fell in the battle to uphold human rights in Rwanda deserve to be remembered and honoured on this day, here I would like to pay special tribute to those who lost their lives, or disappeared, after responding to my call to struggle for the establishment of genuine democracy, respect for human rights and rule of law in our homeland.

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THE US SECRETARY OF STATE’S VISIT TO RWANDA SHOULD SPARK THE OPENING OF THE POLITICAL SPACE

PRESS RELEASE N° ISH2022/08/006

THE US SECRETARY OF STATE’S VISIT TO RWANDA SHOULD SPARK THE OPENING OF THE POLITICAL SPACE

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On behalf of members of ISHEMA Party and on behalf of all Rwandans, we would like to welcome the United States (US) Secretary of State, Hon Antony BLINKEN to the country of a thousand hills, Rwanda.

On this occasion, it is imperative to raise some important issues faced by our people because of lack of good governance, violations of human rights, lack of an open political space, which, if not well managed are driving the country and the whole region into a chaotic end. The American government has played a major role in supporting the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) despite its liberticide and warmongering nature in the Great Lakes region. While the RPF has a heavy responsibility, its partners, and donors such as the US cannot escape the public judgement. To confront these ills and correct what is popularly seen as mistakes of the past, a call to act is sent to the American People as well as to all the international community.

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Congress to investigate Kagame’s spy actions against Americans with Pegasus

Last year, the world was shocked to learn that Rwandan President Paul Kagame was using Israeli spy software, Pegasus to spy on his perceived enemies. They include Americans. One American citizen he targeted is Carine Kanimba. She found out the security on her phone had been compromised when she was in Belgium advocating for her father’s release.

Kanimba said, “It was bad enough that they kidnapped my father, tortured him, and robbed him of his legal rights. Now we find out that they have listened to my conversations with the US State Department, Belgium Foreign Minister Sophie Wilmes, and our attorneys. This adds insult to injury.”

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World’s ‘most inhumane’ jail where ‘prisoners eat bodies of dead lags to survive’

Rwanda’s Gitarama prison can lay claim to the dubious honour of being the filthiest, most overcrowded and most brutal jails on Earth, even though a former governor admits it’s ‘possible’ that some of its inmates are innocent.

Gitarama Prison is considered to be one of the most hellish places on Earth.

The brutal jail on the outskirts of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, was built in 1960 as housing for British workers. It was later converted into a jail designed to hold around 400 prisoners.

It currently holds over 7,000, and at its peak after the horrifying Rwandan genocide of the mid-1990s, was estimated to hold closer to 50,000 inmates.

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UK’s Rights Assessment of Rwanda Not Based on Facts

Abuses Overlooked to Justify Cruel Asylum Policy

This week, the United Kingdom published its safety assessment on Rwanda, intended to justify a recently announced agreement to send asylum seekers crossing the English Channel or other so called “irregular” or dangerous routes to the Central African country. The report was expected to downplay human rights violations in Rwanda. After all, the government couldn’t ship off vulnerable people seeking protection with a one-way ticket to a partner they regard as abusive. But it goes even further, cherry-picking facts, or ignoring them completely, to bolster a foregone conclusion.

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Un jour avec Denis Mukwege, Nobel de la paix contraint de vivre sous protection

Il est célèbre dans le monde entier pour son combat en faveur des femmes violées, ces corps « transformés en champs de bataille » que le gynécologue formé à Angers tente de réparer. Et obtenir, pour toutes les victimes des carnages perpétrés au Congo, justice et vérité.

Denis Mukwege, 67 ans, prix Nobel de la paix (2018), a nommé les crimes, les violences sexuelles, les monstruosités subies par les femmes en République du Congo.

Il a, le temps d’un passage à Paris, troqué sa blouse de chirurgien pour un élégant costume et reçoit chaleureusement quelques journalistes et représentants d’ONG dans un discret hôtel parisien. Denis Mukwege, 67 ans, vit en permanence sous protection depuis qu’il dénonce, avec le renfort et l’autorité de son prix Nobel de la paix décerné en 2018, les carnages incompréhensibles perpétrés en République démocratique du Congo.

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Hotel Rwanda’ hero’s family file $400m suit against gov’t

Paul Rusesabagina is serving 25 years in prison in Rwanda on terrorism charges which his supporters say are a sham.

Published On 30 Apr 2022

The family of Paul Rusesabagina, whose heroism during the 1994 Rwandan genocide was depicted in the Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda, have filed a $400m lawsuit in the US over his alleged abduction and torture by the government in Kigali.

The lawsuit names the government of Rwanda, President Paul Kagame, and other senior officials including the former justice minister and intelligence chief.

“The complaint alleges that the Government of Rwanda and high-ranking Rwandan officials conspired to facilitate and execute an elaborate plot to lure Paul Rusesabagina from his home in Texas to Rwanda, where he would be tortured and illegally detained,” the family and his lawyers said in a statement on Saturday.

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