Iyo bamaze kuraswa polisi ibagerekaho ngo kuba bakoranaga n’imitwe ya Kiyislamu yitwara butagondwa nyamara nta kimenyetso na kimwe kibigaragaza, yewe n’inzego z’ubutasi z’ibihugu byateye imbere kandi bikoresha « technologie » ihambaye byagaragaje ko mu Rwanda iyo mitwe itahakorera. Akenshi kandi usanga n’abarasirwa mu Rwanda harimo abatari abayisilamu.
Bityo rero:
Hashingiwe ku ihame ry’uko ukekwaho icyaha wese akwiye gushyikirizwa ubutabera,
Hashingiwe kandi ku ihame ry’uko umuntu utarahamwa n’icyaha aba afatwa nk’umwere mu gihe cyose ataracibwa urubanza ngo ahamwe n’icyaha,
Hashingiwe ko mu Rwanda igihano cy’urupfu cyavuyeho,
Twe abayobozi b’amashyaka yibumbiye mu Ihuriro rya NOUVELLE GENERATION:
Tubabajwe bikomeye n’ubu bwicanyi bukorerwa abenegihugu nta cyaha cyabahamye nta n’ikimenyetso na kimwe cyagaragajwe ko abo bantu koko ari intagondwa cyangwa ko bateguraga ibikorwa by’iterabwoba
Twamaganiye kure ubu bwicanyi kandi tukibutsa ko Itegeko Nshinga ry’u Rwanda ryo mu mwaka wa 2003 nk’uko ryavuguruwe mu mwaka wa 2015, riteganya ko:
“Umuntu wese afite uburenganzira bwo kubaho, ntawe ushobora kuvutswa ubuzima mu buryo bunyuranije n’amategeko” (ingingo ya 12)
“Umuntu ni umunyagitinyiro kandi ni indahungabanywa, Leta ifite ishingano zo kumwubaha, kumurinda no kumurengera” Ingingo ya 13.
Amashyaka ahuriye mu Ihuriro NOUVELLE GENERATION aboneyeho gusaba Leta y’u Rwanda ibi bikurikira.
Guhagarika bwangu ibyo bikorwa by’ubwicanyi,
Guhana by’intangarugero abapolisi barashe bakavutsa ubuzima Channy MBONIGABA ku mugoroba wo kuwa 17 Kanama 2016 i Nyarutarama, mu mujyi wa Kigali kimwe n’abarashe kandi bakica Eric MBARUSHIMANA, Hassan NKWAYA na Mussa BUGINGO mu rukerera rwo kuwa 19 Kanama 2016 mu Bugarama mu Ntara y’Uburengerazuba
Gusezerera ku murimo abayobozi ba gipolisi bayoboye uturere ibyo byaha bigayitse byakorewemo
Kweguza Ministri w’umutekano mu gihugu hagashyirwaho Ministri uzaharanira iyubahirizwa ry’amategeko.
Turasaba Abanyarwanda bose kandi gutinyuka bagaharanira uburenganzira bwabo kuko bigaragara neza ko inzego za polisi zishobora gukomeza kwitwaza ngo hari abashaka guteza umutekano mukeya mu gihugu, nyamara zigamije gucecekesha abanyarwanda baba bifuza kugaragaza ibitekerezo byabo byubaka no kwamagana akarengane FPR ikorera abenegihugu nk’uko babyemererwa n’amategeko u Rwanda rugenderaho ndetse n’amahame mpuzamahanga. Uburenganzira buraharanirwa.
Leta yica abaturage yakagombye kurengera ntikwiye gukomeza kwitwa Leta !
Bikorewe i Paris kuwa 22 Kanama 2016
FFP-URUKATSA: Abdallah AKISHURI,Prezida
ISHEMA Party: Padiri Thomas NAHIMANA, Umunyamabanga Mukuru
(Nairobi) – Rwandan authorities are rounding up poor people and arbitrarily detaining them in “transit centers” across the country, Human Rights Watch said today. The conditions in these centers are harsh and inhuman, and beatings are commonplace. New research indicates that the authorities have made few changes in a center in Gikondo, in the capital, Kigali, despite an earlier Human Rights Watch report on abuses there, and that similar degrading treatment prevails in other transit centers.
A street in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, May 11, 2016.
New Human Rights Watch research in 2016 has found that scores of people, including homeless people, street vendors, street children, and other poor people, are being rounded up off the streets and detained in “transit centers” or “rehabilitation centers” for prolonged periods. Detainees have inadequate food, water, and health care; suffer frequent beatings; and rarely leave their filthy, overcrowded rooms. None of the former detainees Human Rights Watch interviewed were formally charged with any criminal offense and none saw a prosecutor, judge, or lawyer before or during their detention.
“The Rwandan government should close these unofficial detention centers and instead provide voluntary vocational training, help, and protection for vulnerable people,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Locking poor people up in harsh and degrading conditions and abusing them isn’t going to end their poverty, and it violates both Rwandan and international law.”
Following a September 2015 Human Rights Watch report on abuses at the Gikondo transit center, Human Rights Watch interviewed 43 former detainees from Gikondo and three transit centers in other parts of Rwanda: Muhanga (Muhanga district), Mbazi (Huye district), and Mudende (Rubavu district). Most of these interviews took place in 2016.
Contrary to the designations for these centers, none of the people interviewed had “transited” to other facilities after their most recent arrest and most had not been through any “rehabilitation,” such as professional training or education, at the centers.
“They correct us by beating us with sticks,” one man told Human Rights Watch.
In November, just over a month after Human Rights Watch’s report, the Kigali City Council published a new directive regulating the Gikondo center, creating, for the first time, a specific legal framework. The directive contains provisions for improving conditions and granting certain rights, but leaves the door open for continuous arbitrary and lengthy detention.
Many aspects of the directive have not been implemented and the situation in Gikondo has not significantly improved since 2015, Human Rights Watch found. While some former detainees described minor adjustments to the infrastructure and the provision of some activities, the center continued to be overcrowded, with bad conditions. Arrests and detention were arbitrary and unlawful, and police officers beat detainees.
The new findings on the four centers Human Rights Watch researched – out of at least 28 across the country – were remarkably similar. Police or other groups responsible for security rounded up beggars, street vendors, or petty criminals, mostly in urban areas, and locked them up in the overcrowded, dirty transit centers.
Most detainees in these four centers were not allowed to leave their room, except to go to the toilet only twice a day. In most cases, food was no more than one cup of corn a day, and several former detainees complained about the lack of drinking water or the opportunity to wash.
Many said they had been beaten. In Gikondo and Muhanga, almost all those interviewed said they were beaten by police or by other detainees, often with sticks. Two adults detained in the center in Mbazi, close to the town of Huye, in southern Rwanda, said they were beaten when they arrived.
“Every day, we have the ‘right’ to be beaten twice: in the morning and in the evening,” a former detainee from the Mudende transit center told Human Rights Watch. “That is our ‘right.’” The situation in Mudende, close to the town of Rubavu, in northwestern Rwanda, was particularly serious, with police officers, military, or other detainees beating detainees daily. As soon as detainees arrived, police officers hit them while forcing them to crawl on the ground to the room where they were to be detained.
Human Rights Watch received information about several people who died during or just after their detention in Mudende, allegedly as a result of a combination of injuries from beatings, poor conditions, and lack of medical care. Human Rights Watch shared information about one such case with the Justice Ministry, which expressed willingness to thoroughly investigate the allegations.
Human Rights Watch spoke to 13 children, ages 10 to 18, who had been detained in Muhanga and Mbazi, between June 2015 and May 2016. Most said they were street children. In Muhanga, children were detained in the same building as adults. In Mbazi, they were held in a separate building with slightly better conditions than the adults, but lacked proper hygiene and access to education. Several former detainees from Mudende and Gikondo said they had also seen children in these centers, ranging from infants held with their mothers to children up to about 18. Several former detainees said children were beaten in Gikondo and Muhanga.
“We are seriously concerned about the detention and ill-treatment of children in transit centers,” Bekele said. “This is a negative development, as we were no longer receiving reports of detention of children in Gikondo between mid-2014 and mid-2015. The Rwandan government should order the immediate release of all children detained in transit centers.”
Human Rights Watch wrote to the Rwandan justice minister, Johnston Busingye, in March, May, and June 2016, to share its findings and to comment on the Kigali City Council directive. In a written reply on July 5, the Ministry stated that it is continuing to inquire “to make sure that there are no human rights abuses in Rwanda’s transit centres” and that it has “been assured that no ill-treatment incident has happened neither in Muhanga nor Huye or Mudende.” The Ministry said it would follow up any specific incident reported.
The arbitrary arrest of poor people is part of an unofficial government practice to hide “undesirable” people from view, and contrasts with the Rwandan government’s impressive efforts to reduce poverty, Human Rights Watch said. Street vendors, many of them women, have been among the main targets. On May 25, the mayor of Kigali called street vendors “an impediment to cleanliness” and told them to form cooperatives.
Several other government officials promised measures to improve the situation after Theodosie Mahoro, a street vendor, was killed on May 7, in Nyabugogo bus station in Kigali – illustrating the precarious conditions in which they and other poor people operate. Security guards tried to confiscate Mahoro’s goods and beat her severely, in front of many witnesses. She died almost immediately. The authorities arrested three security guards suspected of causing her death and promised to investigate.
In 2015 and 2016, the National Commission for Human Rights and members of the Rwandan Parliament confirmed some of Human Rights Watch’s findings and endorsed a recommendation for an updated legal framework for all “transit centers.”
“New legislation could be a step in the right direction if it prevents arbitrary detention and guarantees detainees’ rights to full due process and protection from ill-treatment,” Bekele said. “But ultimately, the Rwandan government should close these centers and ensure that abuses are investigated and prosecuted.”
For details, please see below.
New Legal Framework for Gikondo
Following the September 2015 Human Rights Watch report on the Gikondo transit center, Justice Minister Johnston Busingye was quoted in the media denying the existence of any illegal detention center in the country and dismissing Human Rights Watch’s findings. He said the government stood by its policy of “rehabilitation rather than incarceration” and stated that Gikondo “is a transit center and people are held there for a short period before longer term remedial or corrective measures are taken.”
In a positive move, in November, the Kigali City Council adopted a new directive on the Kigali Rehabilitation Transit Center – the official name for the Gikondo center – laying out the center’s objectives and procedures. The directive addresses some of the issues Human Rights Watch had raised, in particular the lack of a legal framework. It also lists the rights of those taken to the center, including the rights not to be subjected to corporal punishment, harassed, or discriminated against, access to hygiene and health care, and the right to visits.
Fundamental concerns remain, however. Rather than eliminating arbitrary detention, the directive seems to embed detention practices that could conflict with Rwanda’s obligations under international human rights law. Under the directive, the center is to receive people whose behavior disturbs public order and security – a broad and vague notion that could be applied to categories of people for whom arrest and detention are not an appropriate or lawful response.
The directive created, at least in theory, a commission consisting of those running the center, representatives of the Justice Ministry, the district hospital, and district authorities, to analyze the problems of those taken to Gikondo and assign them, within 72 hours, to various categories. Based on the designation, within 14 days, the authorities should release them to their families or send them to the judicial police, a re-education center, a hospital, or another place “that could give him back a life that enhances his well-being.”
In theory, therefore, most detainees should leave Gikondo after a maximum of 17 days. However, the directive allows for some to be held longer. Unless they successfully pass a “test” and are released, the commission can decide that detainees should remain in Gikondo for an unspecified longer period to “help readapt those the commission can’t transfer elsewhere.”
On March 4, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Justice Minister requesting, among other things, clarification about elements of the directive and voicing concern about the continued possibility for arbitrary detention in the center for an unspecified and possibly lengthy period. The Justice Ministry replied on July 5 that it appreciated Human Rights Watch’s analysis of the directive and stated that “you cannot deny the fact that the directive contains positive elements and it is a step forward among others to eliminate any form of ill-treatment in transit centres.” It did not provide more detailed responses to the specific points about the directive.
No Fundamental Changes in Gikondo
Since the publication of the directive, Human Rights Watch has interviewed 12 former detainees – seven women and five men – who spent between four days and three months in Gikondo between October 2015 and April 2016. At least two were held for much longer than the period specified in the directive, and a third said she spent about two weeks in the detention center. Others spent an average of about a week in Gikondo.
None said they had seen members of a commission or undergone a test. As far as they could see, police were the only officials “screening” detainees and deciding who could leave.
Former detainees’ descriptions indicated that conditions inside Gikondo have not changed fundamentally. Some mentioned that walls had been repainted and toilet facilities renovated, but overall conditions remained very poor.
Transit Centers in Mudende, Mbazi, Muhanga
Human Rights Watch interviewed 31 people – 13 men, five women, and 13 children – whom the Rwandan authorities detained in three transit centers – Mudende transit center (in Nyabushongo, Rubavu district), Mbazi transit center (in Mbazi, Huye district), and Muhanga transit center (in Mushubati, Muhanga district) – between September 2014 and May 2016.
The 10 interviewed from Mudende had spent between a week and six months there; the 12 from Mbazi spent between one night and three months; and the nine from Muhanga were there between three days and three months.
Most said they were arrested because they couldn’t show identity documents or were street vendors or street children; others were arrested for being drunk or for otherwise disturbing public order.
Most had been arrested and detained in a transit center several times before – a pattern Human Rights Watch had documented in its 2015 report. One said he had been arrested more than 20 times. Another couldn’t even count the number of times he had been arrested and sent to a transit center.
No Transit, No Rehabilitation
Despite the fact that the Rwandan government calls these centers “transit centers” or “rehabilitation centers,” all the people interviewed had been released after their most recent period of detention without being transferred anywhere. Most resumed their old habits or activities as soon as they were released, as they had no alternative way to earn a living.
However, some said that some other detainees had been sent to a rehabilitation center on Iwawa, an island in Lake Kivu. Human Rights Watch spoke to a man who had spent nine months in Gikondo in 2015, was transferred to Iwawa, but was rearrested and taken back to Gikondo – for the sixth time – in April 2016, after his release from Iwawa.
Justice Minister Busingye said in September 2015, in his response to the earlier Human Rights Watch report, that Rwanda had “chosen to focus on rehabilitating and reintegrating them [drug addicts and other criminals] to offer the chance for a better life.” The 2015 directive on Gikondo states that the center will provide activities and courses to encourage good conduct, as well as counseling and other support, but few of the former detainees interviewed had benefited from such activities or services.
Human Rights Watch research in 2016 showed that rehabilitation or reintegration efforts are very limited at the transit centers. The majority interviewed were not aware of or given the opportunity to participate in training or education activities. One former female detainee mentioned that detainees in Gikondo were taught to make baskets; another remembered a presentation about savings. In Mbazi, Muhanga, and Mudende, no training was provided, but some former detainees remembered civic education activities about crime prevention, genocide commemoration, or HIV/AIDS.
A 25-year-old male street vendor who was detained in Gikondo in March said:
They say on the radio that the government is teaching professions in Kwa Kabuga [the unofficial name for Gikondo]. It’s wrong, because no one in our room received any training when I was there. There are no jobs in Kwa Kabuga. We stay in the room the whole day.
Inhuman Conditions
Former detainees’ descriptions of conditions in the four transit centers were remarkably similar. They said that as many as several hundred people were crammed into one room. Some said that there was so little space that they had to sleep standing up. There was poor hygiene, vermin, and difficult and limited access to toilets, causing health problems.
Most former detainees said they received a maximum of one cup of corn a day, sometimes mixed with beans. Some said they had porridge in the morning. Most detainees slept on the floor, others slept on mats or under dirty blankets, which several detainees had to share.
Access to drinking water varied according to the location and period of detention. Some said there was no drinking water, while others said there was sufficient water. In its annual report for 2014-2015, the National Commission for Human Rights documented that in seven transit centers, including Mudende, there was no clean drinking water. Some detainees were unable to wash themselves or their clothes throughout their stay in one of the four centers, while others could wash sporadically or regularly.
A 33-year old female soft-drink vendor described the daily routine and conditions in Gikondo in March:
Inside, life is not good. They wake us up at 3 a.m., then put us in line, count us and write it [the number of detainees] down. They ask us what we owned before the arrest. There is no water. They give us only half a cup of corn. We have difficulties finding water to drink, except when we can go out to wash. We take a shower in the room. They give us a bucket for five people. We wash in front of everyone. We also defecate in front of everyone, as there are no doors. […] In the room, there are mice, lice and fleas. We tried to clean the room, but it didn’t help much. I have scars from scratching.
Most former detainees only left their room to go to the toilet, which they were only allowed to do once or twice a day, in a group. If someone had to use the toilet in between these visits, they had to improvise inside the room.
In Gikondo, some former detainees said they could leave their room for group prayers or exercises, known as mchaka. Others in other centers were only taken out for beatings or when officials counted the detainees.
In these conditions, health problems such as malaria, cholera, and diarrhea were common, the former detainees said. Some said they had access to medication and that a nurse visited, but others received no health care. Some detainees were taken to a dispensary, sometimes handcuffed, for medical treatment. Some were released because they were very sick.
Some former detainees mentioned that visits were allowed twice a week in Gikondo or once a week in Mbazi. But one former detainee from Gikondo said: “They are not real visits. People only come to inquire whether you are there, and then they leave. It is just to inform the family. That’s what they call a visit.”
Absence of Due Process
Most detainees were arrested in public areas in towns or urbanized centers, such as bus stations or markets, by police, military, or by people described as “those who do the rounds” (private security guards in places such as Nyabugogo bus station in Kigali); asinkeragutabara, an auxiliary service of the Rwanda Defense Force; or as members of the District Administration Security Support Organ (DASSO). Several former detainees said that members of all these groups beat certain people during their arrest.
Most detainees were then taken to a police station or post, where some were held for several days, often in bad conditions. The police beat some of them there. Police then transported them to a transit center in a police truck. In May, Human Rights Watch researchers saw a police truck with detainees arriving at the Mudende transit center.
Three people arrested in Kigali were released from a police station after family members or acquaintances bribed the police or after a police officer intervened on their behalf. “Normally those who are taken to Gikondo are vagabonds and street vendors,” a male street vendor said. “[After I was arrested] I was able to inform people from my home area and they came to check my case. They found a (civilian) person of standing and gave him 10,000 Rwandan francs (US$12) that she gave to a police officer. That’s how I was released after three weeks in detention [in the police station].” Other people who had lacked the means to bribe police officers confirmed the practice.
Police administering the transit centers often carried out a very basic registration of detainees before or on arrival at the transit center.
Only one former detainee interviewed, from Mbazi transit center, said he had been questioned by a judicial police officer. None of those interviewed had been taken before a prosecutor or a judge, or officially charged with an offense, before or during their detention. Some Gikondo detainees received a token or a piece of paper indicating their alleged offense – for example “armed robbery” – but were given no opportunity to explain or defend themselves.
Although the right to legal assistance is enshrined in Rwandan and international law, none of those interviewed saw a lawyer before or during their detention, nor did the officials running the center ask them if they wanted legal assistance.
Some families did not know where detainees were held, though most went directly to the police or these transit centers to look for them since it is widely known that poor people are locked up in these centers. Some families were then able to confirm that the detainees were there. In its 2014-2015 report, the National Commission for Human Rights stated that, “The commission has observed that some families who have their [family members] in transit centers were not informed that they were imprisoned there.”
Beatings
All former Mudende detainees interviewed said they had been beaten by the police who administered the center and by other detainees chosen by the police to maintain order inside the center.
The beatings by police started as soon as they arrived. A former detainee said:
After getting out of the vehicle, they ordered us to lie down on our belly on the ground and walk with our hands one after the other, like a snake. When we arrived close to the door of the place where the policemen wash, they beat me with a padlock. They beat me all over.
Further beatings took place during their detention, sometimes daily. Police and military officials sometimes also took detainees out of their room to beat them.
Most former Gikondo or Muhanga detainees had also been beaten there by police or by other detainees. A 40-year-old woman who sold juice and water in Nyabugogo bus station in Kigali was part of a group of people arrested and taken to Gikondo in December. She said:
When we arrived at Gikondo, they made us sit in line. First they beat the street children. They were police officers in uniform. Then they beat the women on their feet, saying […] “Why do you continue to sell in the streets? Why don’t you respect the law?” The men were lying on their belly and were beaten like this by the police on their buttocks. The police beat them with sticks. Me too, I was beaten on my shoulders.
She said she still felt pain from the beatings several months later.
Inside the four detention centers, detainees chosen by the police, and known as “counselors,” beat those who disturbed the order or who didn’t have money to give them. In Mudende, the “counselor” beat detainees with a knotted rope.
A 30-year woman described how the “counselors” treated detainees in Gikondo:
They are very mean, but they are prisoners like us. If we have nothing [no money] on us, we are terribly beaten. I was not beaten myself, as I had 500 Rwandan francs [approximately US$0.60] that I gave immediately. The “counselors” punched others with their fists, to give a “stamp” on their back, or hit them with their elbows.
A former male detainee who was in charge of security in a room in Gikondo in April 2016 said:
The “counselor” was our boss. When someone spoke, he had to put his feet on the wall, like this. [He demonstrated how detainees were forced to stand upside down against the wall.] The punishment would only stop when everyone had to leave the room [for collective sports or toilet visits]. If [the detainee] fell, he was beaten by the “counselor”.
In Mbazi, two of the 12 former detainees interviewed – a man and a woman – said they were beaten, but for them, the conditions in the center were an even greater concern. A former detainee from Mbazi said the conditions were worse than the beatings.
Children in Detention
Human Rights Watch interviewed 13 minors, ages 10 to 18, who had been detained in Muhanga or Mbazi. Former detainees from Mudende and Gikondo also said they had seen children in these centers, including infants held with their mothers.
The presence of children in these transit centers is a step back, as Human Rights Watch had not received reports of children being sent to Gikondo between mid-2014 and September 2015.
In Muhanga, children were held in the same center as adults, while in Mbazi they were held in a separate building, in slightly better conditions. They received more varied food, and a greater quantity, and could move around more freely, but adults who visited the children’s room said there was a lack of proper hygiene and no education.
Most of the children interviewed who had been in Muhanga told Human Rights Watch that they were beaten by police who administered the center or by other detainees. Some former detainees from Gikondo also said they saw children being beaten.
Most children had been arrested because they were street children. Two boys said they had gone to the Mbazi transit center voluntarily, looking for a better life. One ran away a few days after he arrived. A social worker took another boy out of the center, where there were no activities, to place him back in school.
Releases
Most detainees were released on the decision of the police commander in charge of the center, sometimes assisted by other policemen, military, or local government officials. Releases were as arbitrary as the arrests. There were no clear criteria for deciding that someone could leave the center. Some were told they were being released because their room was full, others because they were sick or had apparently spent enough time in the center. Others did not know the reason.
A young man who was detained in Gikondo six times, most recently in April because he wasn’t carrying an identity card, said:
The “screening” is a selection of those that can go [be released] and those who stay. It is the [police] commander who does it. They bring us outside, the street kids, the street vendors, the criminals, everyone with his group. The afande [commander] says: “Street vendors, you go!” or “Street children, you go!” […] For the selection, there are three or four people, but the afande is the boss. The others are policemen in uniform, but the commander decides.
In Gikondo, Mudende, and Muhanga, several detainees were released because they were seriously ill, or after a family member or acquaintance bribed one of the police officers in charge of the center. In some cases, a plea by an influential person led to a release.
Police officers told a former detainee in Mbazi before his release in February 2016: “You saw the conditions here, you have understood. You have to change if you have understood.”
Public Debate
After the publication of the Human Rights Watch 2015 report, several Rwandan and international organizations discussed the situation in transit centers.
In its 2014-2015 annual report, the National Commission for Human Rights described its visits to 28 transit centers across Rwanda. It confirmed several problems in the transit centers, but concluded that human rights were respected. Despite being nominally independent, the commission rarely expresses strong or fundamental criticism of the Rwandan government’s human rights record. In March 2016, the United Nations Human Rights Committee expressed its concern about the selection of the members of the commission and its perceived lack of independence.
After the commission presented its report to parliament in October 2015, and a parliamentary visit to 11 transit centers, members of parliament were quoted in the media in March 2016, calling the transit centers “prisons” and speaking out against prolonged detention, including of minors.
One member of parliament declared in a parliamentary debate broadcast on Voice of America on March 15, 2016:
It isn’t even a transit center! In fact, those who are held in a transit center normally have a destination. That is, those who are held there spend some time, normally a short time, waiting to be transferred elsewhere. But we have become aware that those who are held in these centers spent as long as two months there, and then returned home. They don’t receive any training. In fact, we have realized that it is a prison conceived in another way.
Several Rwandan radio stations broadcast discussions on the topic in late 2015 and early 2016. In a rare expression of critical views and debate – most Rwandan media tend to favor the government’s view – listeners called in and told their personal stories about detention in transit centers, while government officials in the radio studio denied that there were abuses in the transit centers.
In March, the National Assembly endorsed a National Commission for Human Rights recommendation to revise a ministerial order on rehabilitation centers for minors. The Rwandan government is preparing a new legal framework on transit centers. Despite multiple requests to the Justice Ministry, Human Rights Watch has not received any details about this new legislation.
After its March 2016 review of Rwanda’s human rights situation, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concern about the fact that “homeless people and beggars continue to be detained without charge and without judicial oversight in Gikondo Rehabilitation Transit Centre, allegedly in extremely harsh conditions.” It recommended ending “involuntary detention of homeless people, beggars and other members of vulnerable groups in transit or rehabilitation centres” and abolishing the crime of vagrancy. An upcoming review of Rwanda’s Penal Code could provide a good opportunity to abolish this offense.
After Rwanda’s Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council in November 2015, Rwanda accepted a recommendation by the United Kingdom to comply with and implement further legislation on transit centers. It did not accept a suggestion by Ghana to “investigate allegations of arbitrary arrests and maltreatment of detained persons at the Gikondo Transit Centre, and bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Despite the Rwandan justice minister’s public promises to investigate and act on information related to possible human rights abuses, and despite multiple requests for information, Human Rights Watch is not aware of any investigation, prosecution, or other actions by the Rwandan authorities in relation to abuses in transit centers.
Anjan Sundarama has worked as a journalist in Rwanda for years. He has his story to share: “ The underlying tension that caused the genocide has not been addressed. Kagame’s solution was to say that ethnicity was an invention of the Belgian colonial powers that ruled Rwanda for many decades. And so there’s been a de facto ban on speaking about ethnicity in Rwanda…. but…in private Hutus and Tutsis still speak extremely violently and aggressively about the others’ ethnicity. So I would not say there has been a great deal of true reconciliation in Rwanda”.
Following is his interview with The World Policy Journal.
WORLD POLICY JOURNAL: What did you consider your role or your responsibility to be as a foreign journalist working in Rwanda, and how did the restrictions on the local journalists affect this?
ANJAN SUNDARAM: Local journalists and I worked in very different positions. The local journalists were fighting for their own freedom, and they were taking greater risks than I was because their lives were in danger and their families were in danger. They were hoping that their children could live in a better and freer Rwanda.
My own experience was rather different. I had sympathy for my students, so when my students were in trouble I wanted to help them. Of course I was in less danger than they were, but that also meant that I could take greater risks. So during most of my time in Rwanda I did not publish press articles for fear that I would be thrown out of the country and would not be able to help my colleagues and my students. And that was the biggest trade-off; I had to keep silent for a long time. This book is the result of the information and interviews and experiences I gathered during many years of silence in Rwanda, collecting information patiently trying to help [my journalists] as best as I could.
WPJ: You draw parallels between Rwanda’s current political dynamics and those that existed leading up to the genocide in 1994, particularly in terms of the enforcement of a single state-directed narrative and the silencing of alternative voices. What does this suggest about the degree of change that’s happened in the country since the genocide?
AS: On the surface it looks like there’s been a lot of change and a great deal of progress. There’s a lot of calm in Rwanda, it seems stable, and it’s held up by many foreign donors as the island of stability in a troubled region. But the reality is that the same structures that were in place prior to and during the genocide are still in place today, and they’re being reinforced. And this obviously does not augur well for the Rwandan people.
The level of control is extreme—there is no free press, there are no institutions to speak of. Last week President Kagame announced he would run for a third term, violating previous promises to respect what had been a two-term limit in the constitution. Now he’s saying the country needs him and people have asked him to stay on, like many dictators do. But really Rwanda today is a structurally unstable place and there’s very little likelihood that there’ll be a transfer of power without violence.
WPJ: Kagame played a prominent role at the time of the genocide, and he’s still the main figure in the country now. So how much of the problem is tied directly to him, and how much is just how the system operates?
AS: It’s all tied directly to him, he’s the central power in Rwanda and his power is almost absolute, and even his supporters—those who claim he is somewhat democratic and is doing good for Rwanda—would admit that his power is almost absolute. He’s responsible for all the structures that are in place today in Rwanda. And he is directly responsible for the continuation of the system of control that was used to conduct the genocide. He says he is now using that system, or a similar system, for good, but the risk is always that he might make a bad decision, or leadership in Rwanda might change and that the system in place is incredibly powerful and incredibly catastrophic, as we saw during the genocide in 1994. It’s all very well for Kagame to say he’s a good person and is leading the country with good intentions. The reality is that there are almost no checks and balances, and his government and he are capable of doing a great deal of harm, which goes unreported in Rwanda.
WPJ: Do you think Rwandan society has recovered to any extent from the genocide, to whatever degree that’s even possible, even if the state might not have not changed much at its core?
AS: I think there’s very little sense among Rwandans of the existence of individuals with rights, with possibilities. There’s a small elite in the country who feel the sense of possibility, but for the majority they are under the control of the state and their lives are highly restricted. I think there’s been a natural healing process in the last 20 years coming to terms with what’s happened and understanding why that’s happened, and there is a genuine desire among Rwandans that it does not happen again. I think that’s at the root of the obedience toward the current government—[the people] are worried that were they to oppose the government, or were there to be a rebellion, there would be renewed violence. They’re so traumatized by the experience of extreme violence that they accept a great deal of control and repression from the Rwandan state without fighting back or pushing back. The underlying tension that caused the genocide has not been addressed. Kagame’s solution was to say that ethnicity was an invention of the Belgian colonial powers that ruled Rwanda for many decades. And so there’s been a de facto ban on speaking about ethnicity in Rwanda. That unfortunately has not helped reconcile many of the tensions that led to the genocide, and in private Hutus and Tutsis still speak extremely violently and aggressively about the others’ ethnicity. So I would not say there has been a great deal of true reconciliation in Rwanda.
WPJ: Another issue that you bring up in the book is the role of foreign embassies in supporting the Rwandan government and its repression by providing large sums of aid. What do you think foreign governments should be doing about the current situation in Rwanda, and why are they not doing it?
AS: I think foreign governments are very well aware of the repression in Rwanda, I think there’s a perverse situation right now in which foreign governments are hard pressed to find aid that delivers results worldwide. And Rwanda is one of the few countries where aid plans are actually executed according to plan, largely because of the repressive government. For aid agencies this is a paradise—they come in with their plans and their plans are executed almost as they’ve been drawn up. It’s led to a perverse situation where aid agencies and foreign governments benefit from the repression, so they have no interest in disrupting it. Foreign aid officials are getting promotions and receiving plaudits for excellent management of aid programs, so the repression is actually serving foreign governments’ interests.
The real question is why is the world financing a dictatorship. In the case of an emergency there is no excuse for not intervening. But Rwanda is not in emergency today. The aid that is being provided is for long-term development, and most of it is being channeled through the Rwandan government or for government-supported projects. Foreign donors providing this aid could influence the Rwandan government a great deal but choose not to. Aid that is sent directly to NGOs and independent organizations on the ground would not reinforce the government’s repressive mechanisms in the same way. That already would always be a huge improvement in the way that aid is managed. I think donors or foreign governments have not even begun to assess that they might be doing harm and bolstering the Rwandan government. If there was a way to support the Rwandan people who need support—by alleviating poverty and improving health—without directly going through the Rwandan government, that might be a far more effective and less fraught way of providing foreign aid.
WPJ: The period that the book covers ends in late 2013. Has the state of independent journalism changed at all since that time?
AS: Not at all, there is no free press in the country today. When the Rwandan government held a referendum in the country to decide whether the two-term limit on presidents should be removed, apparently only 10 Rwandans in a country of more than 10 million opposed his run for a third term. This speaks volumes about how little freedom of speech there is in Rwanda, how few people actually dare to speak up. There are good journalists in Rwanda who know how journalism should be practiced, but unfortunately they’re all too scared. They’ve seen too many of their colleagues murdered, imprisoned, tortured, or having to flee the country to save their lives.
The Rwandan government does not understand the benefits that free press would provide to the country’s development. It doesn’t understand how free press needs certain protection and that a free press would criticize the government, and that this is a good thing. It also makes the argument that free press—particularly radio broadcasts—contributed to the genocide in 1994. This is a false argument because while the genocide was happening, any media that spoke up against the killing was shut down. There was only a single voice in the country, much as there is now. During the genocide, that single voice was advocating genocide, and people who opposed it were killed or imprisoned. There’s a very similar situation in Rwanda today, where the government’s voice is the only voice in the country, and journalists know that were they to oppose that voice, the consequences would be dire.
WPJ: Based on your description of the narrative that’s carefully crafted by President Kagame’s regime, your book represents a disruption to the way that the country is typically portrayed, both in domestic media in Rwanda and in international media. What do you think the response in Rwanda—and particularly the government’s response—will be?
AS: Historically the government has allowed English press to exist in Rwanda, even that which is critical of the government, because English is only spoken by a tiny minority of elite with very little incentive to disrupt the current power structure. I know that my book is being read in Rwanda because I am receiving emails from people who have somehow obtained copies. Because of Kagame’s announcement last week that he will stand for a third term, this is a particularly sensitive time in Rwanda, and the book is disruptive in that sense.
I thought there was almost an obligation to write about what I experienced, even if it’s merely to put on the record what happened. Most of the repression is forgotten. Most of the journalists who have been killed or exiled are simply forgotten. There are many great people who stood up to the Rwandan government, who saw the increasing repression, and knew that this was not the direction in which the country should be heading, particularly in a country with a history of genocide. They knew that the risk was great and they were brave enough to stand up to the government, and they suffered for it. And now they’re mostly forgotten. I wanted to correct that in some way, and record as much as I could of their stories.
Si ubwa mbere abagize amatsinda y’Intwarane za Mariya bafatwa na Leta ya Kigali
Mu gihe Leta ya FPR yemerera amadini ya Shitani gukorera ku mugaragaro irafunga, ikica rubozo Intwarane za Yezu na Mariya kuko zidasenga uko FPR ibyifuza.
Mu by’ukuri nta kindi intwarane zizira uretse gutobora zigahanura ko igihugu cyifashe nabi kubera ibikorwa bibi by’ubutegetsi bw igitugu! Baraburira Abanyarwanda ko ibyago bikomeye byenda kubagwa hejuru niba ubutegetsi butaretse ibikorwa bikomeza kurenganya rubanda.
Kubera ko amadini asenga Shitani yo yikundira ibikorwa by’umwijima, niyo afite amahirwe yo gushimagizwa n’ingoma ya Kagame.
Hari ikibazo umuntu yakwibaza: nk’abayobozi b’amadini akomeye bavuga ko nta pfunwe baterwa no kwicarana bakaganira n’Abakozi ba Shitani ariko bakihakana Intwarane, umuntu yabashyira mu kihe gice?
Ngaho nawe isomere iyi nkuru y’Igihe.com maze wirebere uko Intwarane 38 ziri kugaraguzwa agati, zigaharabikwa, zikagerekwaho ibyaha bihimbano,zigafatwa ku ngufu ngo zijye kwicirwa rubozo mu bigo bise iby inzerereziI mu gihe Abasenga Shitani bo bafite ababavuganira hejuru iyo mu Rugwiro!
Mrs. Ingabire Umuhoza Victoire, Chair of UDF-INKINGI opposition political party in Rwanda, detained in Kigali central prison, is to appear before The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Arusha, on March 4th, 2016. In the meantime, the government of Rwanda, which is a party to trial, is subjecting her to various forms of inhumane and degrading treatment as if to break her morale and make it hard to prepare her case properly.
Since Friday, February 5, 2016, the prison management has once again refused to allow her lawyer GATERA Gashabana to meet her in order to prepare her case.
We would like to recall that since Friday, January 29, 2016, the prison management has reduced the number of people who can visit her from 5 to one person per week. This limitation applies to her only.
On November 30th, 2015, her lawyer GATERA Gashabana, asked the President of the Kigali Bar Association to intervene and ask the Rwandan government to stop all the inhumane and degrading treatment of his client. Nothing has been done so far. In the opinion of lawyer Gatera, the molestation including the search of the lawyer and the reading of his legal notes constitute an unacceptable breach of international principles and rules protecting the legal profession.
Further to the first refusal of lawyer Gashabana’s visit, the conditions of detention of political prisoner Ms. Victoire Ingabire has deteriorated, this includes, painting black the windows of her prison cell in order to stop any natural light filtering into the cell, a vicious measure that we fear could lead to blindness.
While for medical reasons, her meal is brought in from outside the detention facility, the prison management has begun to systematically search the food brought by relatives of Mrs. Victoire Ingabire. Thus, in the process of checking the food under the pretext of looking for weapons or other prohibited items, a prison management official has systematically turns the food around in the container in a way that could make it look unpalatable to her, ostensibly to humiliate her and break her morale.
The paroxysm of the persecution is now the downright refusal of any contact between Mrs. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza and her lawyer. The UDF- Inkingi sends an SOS message to governments, friends of the people of Rwanda and human rights organizations to:
– Remind the inalienable and sacred right to a fair trial;
– Remind the Government of Rwanda of its obligations regarding the treatment of prisoners;
– Denounce human rights violations suffered by Mrs. Victoire Ingabire;
– Remind the Rwandan government of its obligation to transport the complainant before her judges to Arusha in the best possible conditions;
– Remind the Government of Rwanda the absolute right of Mrs. Ingabire to meet and work with her defense team on her case;
– Support the appeal of FDU-Inkingi to the Commission of the African Union to take into account the obstacles that the Rwandan government imposes the proper judicial process.
Madamu Uzamukunda Marie Claire yaburiwe irengero ku cyumweru taliki ya 24 Mutarama 2016, ubwo yari avuye iwe i Gicumbi yerekeza ku kazi ke ku bitaro by’i Rwamagana aho akora nka Administratrice . Yafatiwe Nyabugogo azimira atyo, kugeza na n’ubu .Abaturage bahangayikishijwe cyane n’iri rigiswa ritunguranye n’uburyo Polisi igaragaza ubushake buke mu gukurikirana irengero ry’uyu mutegarugori.
Abaturage bemeza ko uyu mudamu bafataga nk’indakemwa mu mico no mu myifatire yahaguruste iwe ku cyumweru mu gitondo nk’uko bisanzwe ari muzima, nta kibazo afite. Bamwe mu baturage bafite ubwoba ko ibi byaba bifitanye isano n’irigiswa ry’abantu rimaze iminsi rikomeje kuvugwa hirya no hino mu gihugu ndetse bikaviramwo bamwe kuraswa mu buryo budafututse mbere y’uko bagezwa imbere y’ubucamanza.
Umwe mu bakoranaga na Madame Uzamukunda Marie Claire utashatse ko tuvuga izina rye kubera umutekano we, yadutangarije uko abona iki kibazo muri aya magambo: « ndahamya rwose ko irigiswa ry’uyu mutegarugori rifitanye isano rya hafi n’umwanya w’akazi yari amaze igihe gito ahawe ». Uyu mukozi bakoranaga yakomeje agira ati: « Madamu Uzamukunda akimara guhabwa uyu mwanya, yatangiye kwibasirwa n’iterabwoba ry’umusirikare mukuru ufitanye relation z’ubuhabara n’ umudamu wari usanzwe akora aka kazi ariko akaba yari yaragaragaje ubushobozi buke mu mirimo ye bigatuma agatakaza » . Uyu mukozi w’ibitaro yatugejeho inkuru iteye ubwoba yabwiwe na Madamu Uzamukunda ubwe! Ngo umunsi umwe , uyu mugore wari utakaje umwanya ariko akaba ihabara rya Afande yasanze Madame Uzamukunda mu biro amubwira n’agasuzuguro kenshi ngo : » Umuntu nkawe ntiyakagombye kuba yicaye mu mwanya nk’uyu ngo yibwireko azawutindaho igihe kirekire »! Yoshoje ubuhamya bwe agira ati : « Kuri njye, aho niho ruzingiye . Ngayo nguko »!
Madamu Uzamukunda arubatse kandi afite abana batatu. Hambere, yahoze ari umwarimukazi mu mashuri abanza, nyuma aza gukomereza amashuri ye muri Kaminuza y’ i Byumba aho yakuye impamyabushobozi ihanitse mu bya « Administration ». Uyu mutegarugori ariko yamenyekanye cyane kubera uruhare rukomeye yagize mu mu bikorwa binyuranye byo guteza imbere umwari n’umutegarugori mu karere ka Gicumbi. Mbere yo guhabwa umwanya wa Administrateur w’ibitaro by’i Rwamagana yabaye Umucungamari w’ibitaro bya Rutongo. Hose aho yakoze yagaragaje ubwitange n’ubukiranutsi mu kubaha ibyarubanda. Twibutse ko uyu mwanya wa Administratrice yari awumazeho amazi atandatu gusa.
Turasaba inzego zose z’ubutegetsi zarebwa n’iki kibazo ko zakora uko zishoboye zikagaragaza aho uyu mubyeyi ari kandi zikihutira kumurenganura biriya bisumizi bitaramukata ijosi bimurenganya. Koko umuntu azire ko ari inyangamuyagayo maze twese dukomeze twituramire?
Turashima abaturage ba Gicumbi barimo kwisuganya ngo bahagurukire rimwe barengera mugenzi wabo uriho kwicirwa rubozo hirya iyo mu bihome bicuze umwijima, ari nta kindi azira uretse umururumba wa bamwe mu baturage bigize INDAKOREKA mu gihugu, bakumva ko bafite ubudahangarwa n’ububasha bwose ku buzima bw’ abaturage baciye bugufi batagira kirengera.
On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I congratulate the people of Rwanda on the 53nd anniversary of your independence on July 1.
Rwanda is a leader in advancing opportunities for girls and women by expanding access to secondary and higher education, particularly in the sciences. Your soldiers promote stability around the globe, with more than 5,000 troops and police participating in peacekeeping missions in countries such as Mali, Central African Republic, Darfur, and South Sudan.
The United States values our partnership in trade, investment, and economic development. We will continue to work with you to advance health and food security, build regional security and cooperation, and promote democracy, human rights, and civil society in Rwanda.
On this joyous day, I wish all Rwandans peace and prosperity in the year ahead.
Rwanda is a constitutional republic dominated by a strong presidency. The ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led a coalition that included four smaller parties. In 2010 voters elected President Paul Kagame to a second seven-year term with 93 percent of the vote. Three other registered political parties participated in the elections. Elections for parliament’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, took place in September 2013. Candidates from the RPF and two other parties that supported RPF policies won all of the open seats, and election observers reported numerous flaws, including possible irregularities in the vote tabulation process. State security forces (SSF) generally reported to civilian authorities, although there were instances in which elements of the security forces acted independently of civilian control.
The most important human rights problems in the country were disappearances, government harassment, arrest, and abuse of political opponents, human rights advocates, and individuals perceived to pose a threat to government control and social order; disregard for the rule of law among security forces and the judiciary; and restrictions on civil liberties. Due to restrictions on the registration and operation of opposition parties and nontransparent vote-counting practices, citizens did not have the ability to change their government through free and fair elections.
Other major human rights problems included arbitrary or unlawful killings, torture, harsh conditions in prisons and detention centers, arbitrary arrest, prolonged pretrial detention, and government infringement on citizens’ privacy rights. The government restricted freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association. Security for refugees and asylum seekers continued to improve but was at times inadequate. The government restricted and harassed local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), particularly organizations that monitored and reported on human rights. There was a small and declining incidence of trafficking in persons. The government restricted labor rights and child labor continued to be a problem.
The government in many cases took steps to prosecute or punish officials who committed abuses, whether in the security services or elsewhere, but impunity involving civilian officials and the SSF was a problem.
The government ceased providing support to the M23 armed group when it was militarily defeated in November 2013. In contrast to previous years, the government did not provide support to armed groups in neighboring countries.
Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
There were several reports the government committed arbitrary or unlawful killings.
On May 17, Alfred Nsengimana, the former executive secretary of Cyuve Sector in Musanze District, was shot and killed while in police custody. Nsengimana was among at least 77 people arrested in Musanze and Rubavu districts from January through May for suspected links to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). Police stated that a Rwanda Correctional Services (RCS) guard shot Nsengimana while trying to escape after leading police to an FDLR weapons cache. Nsengimana was allegedly tortured prior to his death, and police reportedly refused to release Nsengimana’s body to his family. The government responded that Nsengimana’s body was turned over to his family for burial, and that an internal investigation found he was not tortured.
On June 5, President Kagame defended the government’s policy and practices with regard to individuals suspected of posing a threat to state security. During a speech in Nyabihu District, Kagame stated, “those who talk about disappearances…we will continue to arrest more suspects and if possible shoot in broad daylight those who intend to destabilize our country.”
On September 25, the commissioner of the Rwanda National Police (RNP) Criminal Investigations Division announced the arrest of two RNP officers in connection with the July 2013 murder of Transparency International Rwanda Office Coordinator Gustave Makonene. Makonene was strangled and his body dumped on the shores of Lake Kivu near the town of Rubavu; the government and domestic observers noted that Makonene was investigating cases of local police corruption and the trafficking of conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at the time of his death.
From July to October, a number of corpses appeared in Lake Rweru, which is bisected by the border between Rwanda and Burundi. Fishermen reported seeing dozens of floating bodies, some bound and wrapped in sacks. The fishermen alleged that the bodies were carried into the lake by the Nyabarongo River and that the majority of the bodies were then carried away from the lake by the Kagera River. Four bodies were recovered and buried near Kwidagaza village in Burundi’s Muyinga Province. Fishermen living near Kwidagaza reported that on the nights of September 21 and 22, Rwandan marines attempted to exhume the bodies, allegedly to return them to Rwanda. Both Rwanda and Burundi called for a joint investigation into the identity and origin of the bodies. On December 16, Burundi’s minister of foreign affairs accepted an offer of forensic assistance from a group of countries through an international NGO for an investigation led by the African Union. Rwandan officials stated that the government also supported a joint investigation, but no investigation was conducted by year’s end.
The government did not investigate reports that SSF were responsible for the death of former Rwandan intelligence chief and government critic Patrick Karegeya, who was killed on the night of December 31, 2013, in a hotel room in Johannesburg, South Africa. The government denied responsibility for and involvement in the murder, although senior officials publicly welcomed the news of Karegeya’s death. The South African government expelled four Rwandan diplomats, and one from Burundi, in March in connection with Karegeya’s killing and a March attack on the home of another prominent Rwandan government critic.
Government support to the M23 armed group ceased in November 2013, and in contrast to previous years, there were no reports of material support to armed groups. The government continued to deny it provided any support to the M23.
b.Disappearance
There were more reports of disappearances and politically motivated abductions or kidnappings than in previous years. The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) and domestic observers alleged the SSF–including the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF), the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), and the RNP–were involved in reported disappearances. The government stated the police opened missing persons investigations for all individuals reported to be missing by families or human rights organizations, but no perpetrators were identified or punished.
Local human rights organizations ceased investigating disappearances in 2012 after reporting pressure from government officials, including threats and allegations of treason.
From March to September, domestic observers alleged that several hundred persons disappeared in Musanze and Rubavu districts in connection with an extensive security operation conducted by the RDF and RNP. The SSF reportedly detained individuals incommunicado without access to legal representation for up to two months. The SSF released numerous individuals without charge; however, the government charged 77 individuals with crimes against state security, including for collaborating with the FDLR. Of those 77 individuals, judges ordered the release of 33, while upholding charges against 44 in pretrial hearing. At year’s end 44 cases awaited full trial, while the whereabouts of at least 150 individuals reported missing during the March to September security operation remained unknown. The government noted the majority of persons reported to be missing by human rights organizations had not been reported to the police by family or community members.
On April 23, Rwandan SSF reportedly detained Norbert Manirafasha, a refugee under United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) protection, in Goma, the DRC, and forcibly repatriated him to Rwanda. Manirafasha reportedly was held incommunicado until his appearance in court on May 19, when authorities charged him in Rubavu District for crimes against state security alongside 15 other defendants connected to the January to May arrests of alleged FDLR agents.
On June 27, the organizing secretary for the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR), Jean Damascene Munyeshyaka, disappeared after meeting with an unknown individual in Nyamata town, Bugesera District. Police investigated the disappearance but reported no credible leads.
Leaders of the unregistered faction of opposition party Parti Social-Imberakuri (PS-Imberakuri) and the unregistered United Democratic Forces-Inkingi (FDU-Inkingi) alleged that party members disappeared and the RNP failed to investigate the disappearances.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The constitution and law prohibit such practices, but there were numerous reports of abuse of detainees and prisoners by police, military, and NISS officials. Authorities dismissed or disciplined some police officers for use of excessive force and other abuses. Police investigations led to formal criminal charges filed in court in more serious cases.
In 2012 the government signed into law a penal code that upgrades torture from an aggravating circumstance to a crime in itself. The law mandates the maximum penalty, defined by the extent of injury, for SSF and other government perpetrators.
HRW and local observers reported that individuals detained during the January to May arrests of alleged FDLR collaborators were interrogated, abused, and in some instances tortured at military and police detention centers, including the Kwa Gacinya detention center in Kigali and the Kami military intelligence camp.
There were numerous reports of detainee abuse and lengthy illegal detention by police and the SSF at the Gikondo Transit Center (locally known as Kwa Kabuga), the Kwa Gacinya detention center in Kigali, and the Kami military intelligence camp.
On March 21, a court sentenced Jean-Baptiste Icyitonderwa to six years in prison for presentation of a petition that prosecutors alleged was a “false document” to the prime minister. Icyitonderwa was one of two university students who were arrested in September 2013 following an attempt to deliver a petition to the Office of the Prime Minister protesting the government’s decision to levy fees on university students in certain socioeconomic categories. The students reported police beat them with metal rods at the Remera police station in Kigali and held them in solitary cells without food and water for two days. Authorities released the students one week later after a judge dismissed all charges. Despite reporting their torture allegations to a judge, no public investigation occurred. In November 2013 Icyitonderwa was rearrested and charged with using false documents after police alleged that some of the signatories to the petition were not enrolled as university students.
There were reports that torture continued in the Kami military intelligence camp, Mukamira camp, Ministry of Defense headquarters, and undeclared detention facilities as first reported by Amnesty International (AI). In 2012 AI documented 18 allegations of torture and other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment perpetrated by military intelligence and other SSF personnel in 2010 and 2011 to secure information or force confessions. Former detainees alleged they endured sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, starvation, extraction of fingernails, electric shocks, scalding, melting of plastic bags over the head, suffocation, burning or branding, beating, and simulated drowning through confinement in cisterns filled with rainwater. Local and international human rights organizations reported the RDF took positive steps in 2012 to reform military interrogation methods and detention standards, resulting in fewer reports of torture and other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment at Kami and other military detention facilities. They cautioned, however, that the increased use of undeclared detention facilities by NISS, the RDF J-2, and RNP Intelligence made monitoring more difficult.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Prison and detention center conditions ranged from harsh and life threatening to meeting international standards. The government continued to improve prison conditions, although conditions in detention centers did not improve. There were numerous reports police at times beat newly arrested suspects to obtain confessions. There were reports military intelligence personnel and the SSF employed torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment to obtain confessions in military detention centers (see section 1.c.). The SSF used undeclared detention facilities to interrogate persons detained on security charges and military officials accused of insubordination.
Physical Conditions: Men and women were held separately in similar conditions, although overcrowding was more prevalent in male wards. Fewer than 100 children under age three lived with their parents in prison. The RCS provided food and fresh milk to children at its five nursery schools and one psychosocial center. Authorities held juveniles at the Nyagatare Rehabilitation Center, Gitagata Youth Center, or in special wings of regular prisons. There were no reports of abuse of juveniles, and the RCS continued to improve education, job training, and access to legal counsel for juveniles. Persons convicted of genocide-related offenses comprised a majority of the adult prison population. Authorities generally separated pretrial detainees from convicted prisoners, although there were numerous exceptions due to the large number of detainees awaiting trial.
Two major fires damaged prisons and in one instance led to loss of life. On June 4, a fire in the Muhanga Prison in Southern Province destroyed part of the prison structure and inmates’ belongings; the RCS reported no deaths or injuries as a result. On July 7, a fire destroyed one of the four cellblocks at the Rubavu Prison in Western Province; the RCS stated that five inmates died and more than 40 were injured in the fire. The RCS investigation of both fires determined that wiring illegally installed by prisoners to power cooking stoves had overheated.
The government continued to hold eight prisoners of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in a purpose-built detention center, which the United Nations deemed met international standards for incarceration of prisoners convicted by international criminal tribunals. The government held international transfers and some high-profile “security” prisoners in similarly upgraded maximum-security wings of Kigali Central “1930” Prison.
In March 2013 the government disarmed and detained more than 600 M23 combatants who crossed into the country from the DRC after an internal power struggle within the M23 armed group. Authorities interned the combatants in a converted police training facility in Ngoma. Several hundred detainees departed or escaped the Ngoma internment center, and the government was unable to account for their whereabouts.
Prisoner deaths resulted from anemia, HIV/AIDS, respiratory diseases, malaria, and other diseases at rates similar to those found in the general population. Medical care in prisons was commensurate with care for the public at large, as the government enrolled all prisoners in the national health insurance plan. Prisoners had access to potable water. The Ministry of Internal Security had full responsibility to provide food for prisoners through contracted cafeteria services, canteens, and prison gardens. Authorities permitted family members to supplement the diets of vulnerable prisoners with health problems. Ventilation and temperature conditions improved as overcrowding continued to decline. According to the RCS, each prison had dormitories, toilets, sports facilities, a health-care center, a guest hall, a kitchen, water, and electricity, as required by a 2006 presidential order governing prison conditions.
Conditions in police and military detention centers varied. Overcrowding was common in police detention centers, and poor ventilation often led to high temperatures. Provision of adequate food and medical care was inconsistent, and some detainees claimed they went for several days without food. There were complaints regarding inadequate sanitation in some detention centers, and not all detention centers had toilets. There were numerous reports of substandard conditions for civilians held in military detention centers.
The Gikondo Transit Center, locally known as Kwa Kabuga–where Kigali authorities held street children, vagrants, suspected prostitutes, and street sellers–continued to operate despite a Senate committee’s 2008 call for its closure due to substandard conditions (see section 1.d.). There were numerous reports of detainee abuse, prolonged detention without charge, systematic police corruption, and deaths of detainees in the center. The government disputed reports of abuse, and stated that Gikondo operated as a center for emergency social assistance that referred petty criminals, delinquent youth, and street children to rehabilitation programs.
Two other transit centers, where conditions generally met basic international standards, operated under the management of the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, as did one transit center under church management. Authorities transferred male transit center detainees and at-risk youth between the ages of 18 and 35 to the Iwawa Rehabilitation and Vocational Development Center on Iwawa Island. Sanitation, nutrition, and health services improved on Iwawa Island and generally met international standards.
Administration: Recordkeeping on prisoners and detainees remained inadequate, but authorities continued to develop an electronic database of prisoners. Domestic and international human rights organizations reported instances of long delays and failures to locate prisoners and detainees. There were reports of forgotten detainees and prisoners who remained incarcerated beyond their release date due to misplaced records. The RCS continued to provide training to its staff on the shift from penal to rehabilitative detention as it coped with the continuing merger of the National Prisons Service and the Works for General Interest community service program for perpetrators of the genocide. In 2012 the government amended the penal code to allow community service as alternative sentencing for misdemeanors and petty offenses, and the Ministry of Justice instructed judges to utilize alternative sentencing in place of incarceration for nonviolent offenders.
The law provides for an ombudsman who has the power to carry out investigations of prisons. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) also has legal authority to order the release of suspects held in pretrial detention and convicted prisoners. The ombudsman also receives and examines complaints from individuals and independent associations relating to civil servants, state organs, and private institutions. Prisoners and detainees had daily to weekly access to visitors with visitation rules established by prisons and authorities permitted religious observance. Prison staff held regular meetings with prisoners and detainees to listen to inmates’ complaints and took action to resolve them when possible. The Ministry of Internal Security’s permanent secretary personally inspected prisons and took steps to hire staff for a human rights inspectorate within the ministry. The chief of defense staff supervised detention reform efforts in the Ministry of Defense.
Independent Monitoring: The government permitted independent monitoring of prison conditions on a limited basis by diplomats, HRW, and local NGOs as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross, although it at times restricted access to specific prisoners and did not permit monitors to visit undeclared detention centers and certain military intelligence facilities.
HRW obtained access to visit prisons, but the government repeatedly blocked access to individual prisoners. Journalists could access prisons with a valid press card but had to request permission from the RCS commissioner to interview or take photographs.
Improvements: There were continued improvements in the treatment of the general prison population. Overcrowding in prisons continued to decline. The Ministry of Internal Security took full responsibility for providing food to prisoners. Under its strategic plan for 2012-17, the RCS renovated some of the 14 existing prison facilities and continued construction of Butamwa Prison intended to replace Kigali Central “1930” Prison upon completion. Authorities recorded and submitted all juvenile cases to the Ministry of Justice and other government institutions quarterly. The domestic organization Legal Aid Forum (LAF) provided legal assistance to inmates.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The constitution and law prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention, but SSF personnel regularly arrested and detained persons arbitrarily and without due process.
From March to September, members of opposition parties alleged that police detained and held incommunicado more than 200 individuals suspected of links to the FDLR; many individuals were later released without charge (see section 1.b).
Unregistered opposition political parties reported authorities frequently arrested their supporters. Most were released after a detention period of one week or less, although some were allegedly tortured or disappeared (see sections 1.b. and 1.c.).
Laurent Nkunda, the former leader of the Congolese armed group National Congress for the Defense of the People, which reportedly received support from the Rwandan government, remained under house detention without charges. The RDF detained Nkunda in 2009 when he returned to the country, reportedly for consultations with government officials. The government did not act during the year on the DRC’s 2009 extradition request for Nkunda.
Role of the Police and Security Apparatus
The RNP, under the Ministry of Internal Security, is responsible for internal security. The RDF, under the Ministry of Defense, is charged with providing external security, although the RDF also works on internal security and intelligence issues alongside the RNP. Authorities generally maintained control over the RNP and the RDF, and the government had mechanisms to investigate and punish abuse and corruption. The Inspectorate General of the RNP generally disciplined police for excessive use of force and prosecuted acts of corruption. The RDF normally displayed a high level of military professionalism, although elements of the SSF at times may have acted independently of civilian control. For example, there were reports the RDF J-2, NISS, and RNP intelligence forces were responsible for disappearances, illegal detention, and torture in military and police intelligence detention centers, both declared and undeclared (see section 1.c.).
Police at times lacked sufficient basic resources–such as handcuffs, radios, and patrol cars–but observers credited the RNP with generally strong discipline and effectiveness. Nevertheless, there were reports of police indiscipline such as arbitrarily arresting and beating individuals and engaging in corrupt activities. The RNP institutionalized community-relations training, which included appropriate use of force and human rights. The National Police Academy offered an undergraduate program in police studies.
There also were reports of abuse of suspects by local defense forces (LDF), a statutorily established law enforcement organization of approximately 20,000 members under the Ministry of Local Government that assisted police. Communities chose volunteers to serve in the LDF. The RNP exercised tactical control of the LDF, while local officials had responsibility for operational oversight. The LDF performed basic security guard duties throughout the country and chased illegal street vendors, petty criminals, and prostitutes from public areas. Members of the LDF ordinarily were unpaid and received less training than the RNP officers. The government warned the LDF against involvement in criminal activity and prosecuted members who committed crimes. Although reports of LDF abuses continued to decrease, some human rights groups considered the LDF abusive and accused the government of not taking sufficiently strong action against some members.
Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees
The law requires authorities to investigate and obtain a warrant before arresting a suspect. Police may detain suspects for up to 72 hours without an arrest warrant. Prosecutors must submit formal charges within five days of arrest. There were numerous reports police and prosecutors disregarded these provisions and held individuals for months without charge, particularly in security-related cases. The SSF held some suspects incommunicado or under house arrest. At times police employed nonjudicial punishment when minor criminals confessed and the victims agreed to the police officer’s recommended penalty, such as a week of detention or restitution.
The law permits investigative detention if authorities believe public safety is threatened or the accused might flee, and judges interpreted these provisions broadly. A judge must review such detention every 30 days, and it may not extend beyond one year, but the SSF held numerous suspects indefinitely after the first authorization of investigative detention. The government attributed this to judicial backlog and delays in obtaining a court date and stated it generally completed investigations within 30 days. After prosecutors formally file a charge, detention may be indefinite unless bail is granted. Bail exists only for crimes with a maximum sentence of five years’ or less imprisonment, but authorities may release a suspect pending trial if satisfied there is no risk the person may flee or become a threat to public safety and order. Authorities generally allowed family members prompt access to detained relatives, unless the individuals were held on state security charges, at intelligence-related detention centers such as Kami or Kwa Gacinya, or in undeclared detention facilities. The government frequently violated the right to habeas corpus.
By law detainees are allowed access to lawyers, but the scarcity of lawyers and their reluctance to take on cases that were considered to be sensitive for political or state security reasons limited access to legal representation. Some lawyers working on politically sensitive cases reported harassment and threats by government officials and denial of access to the evidence against their clients. According to the LAF, there were approximately 1,200 practicing lawyers, 3,000 paralegals, and 30,768 local mediators known as Abunzi as of September. The government did not provide indigent persons with legal representation, although the LAF, composed of 37 organizations that included domestic and international NGOs, the Rwandan Bar Association, the Corps of Judicial Defenders, and university legal aid clinics, provided legal aid services to indigent persons and vulnerable groups. Such resources were at times insufficient to provide lawyers for all those in need. The law requires the government to provide minors with legal representation, which judicial observers cited as a factor in juvenile trial delays. The government continued to hold an annual Legal Aid Week, during which it processed as many juvenile cases as possible to reduce the backlog.
Defendants sometimes remained in prison after completing their sentences while waiting for an appeal date or due to problems with prison records. The law provides that pretrial detention, illegal detention, and administrative sanctions be fully deducted from sentences imposed, but it does not provide for compensation to persons who were acquitted. The law allows judges to impose detention of equivalent duration and fines on SSF and other government officials who unlawfully detained individuals.
Arbitrary Arrest: Police arbitrarily arrested members of opposition parties, journalists, and members of Jehovah’s Witnesses (see sections 1.d. and 3).
Although there is no requirement for individuals to carry identification, police and the LDF regularly detained street children, vendors, and beggars without identification and sometimes charged them with illegal street vending or vagrancy. Authorities released adults who could produce identification and transported street children to their home districts, to shelters, or for processing into vocational and educational programs.
Despite a 2008 Senate committee report calling for the closure of Kigali’s Gikondo Transit Center for violations of detainee rights and lack of social services, the facility continued to operate as a temporary detention facility for street children, substance abusers, vagrants, suspected prostitutes, and street vendors. Center officials asserted the right to operate, based on a 2007 official gazette notice that reopened the center after previous human rights complaints, and that they held persons for no more than 10 days, although some detainees reported waiting several months before being released. Relatives often reported that authorities denied them access to detainees.
The Ministry of Youth, Information, and Communications Technology continued to operate the Iwawa Rehabilitation and Vocational Development Center on Iwawa Island in Lake Kivu. The center provided six months’ psychotherapy and then six months’ vocational and technical training to approximately 1,500 men between the ages of 18 to 35, most of whom were homeless, substance abusers, or petty criminals who were placed in the center without recourse to judicial process. During the year the government built a medical center that provided acute care and mental health services, significantly improving the living conditions on the island. Nutrition and accommodation standards were adequate, and parents were able to visit their adult children at Iwawa.
Pretrial Detention: Lengthy pretrial detention was a serious problem. The NHRC reported to parliament November 2013 that authorities often detained prisoners for extended periods without arraignment. The NHRC report noted authorities held three individuals–Louis Rurangwa, Leodomir Ngarambe, and Celestin Minirarora–since their arrests in 1994 and 1995 without presentation to a court, although the Justice Ministry denied that any prisoners were incarcerated without trial. The law permits the detention of genocide suspects until they face trial. Authorities permitted the majority of convicted prisoners (those who confessed their genocide crimes) to return to their families, with prison time to be served after the suspended and community service portions of their sentences.
The government made strides toward eliminating the case backlog and reducing the average length of pretrial detention. The government and the LAF worked to train paralegals and Abunzi mediators to handle minor civil cases through alternate dispute mechanisms outside of the court system.
The inspector general of the National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) sanctioned government officials who abused regulations on pretrial detention with penalties such as fines and suspensions.
Despite progress in shortening pretrial detention in the majority of cases, there were reports of lengthy pretrial detention and illegal detention of defendants charged with threatening state security (“undermining national defense” in the penal code), terrorism, contempt for the head of state, and other security-related crimes. Such cases were also more likely to experience repeated delays after trials began.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The constitution and law provide for an independent judiciary, and the judiciary operated in most cases without government interference. There were constraints on judicial independence, however, and government officials sometimes attempted to influence individual cases. Authorities generally respected court orders.
Trial Procedures
The law provides for a presumption of innocence. The law requires that defendants be informed promptly and in detail of the charges in a language they comprehend, but this requirement was at times not followed, and judges postponed numerous hearings because this requirement was not observed.
Defendants have the right to a fair trial without undue delay, but there were an insufficient number of prosecutors, judges, and courtrooms to hold trials within a reasonable period of time. In the ordinary court system, the law provides for public trials, although courts closed proceedings in cases involving minors to protect witnesses or at the request of defendants. Judges, rather than juries, try all cases. Defendants have the right to communicate with an attorney of their choice, although few could afford private counsel. The law provides for legal representation of minors. The law does not provide for an attorney at state expense for indigent defendants. The Rwandan Bar Association and 36 other member organizations of the LAF provided legal assistance to some indigent defendants but lacked the resources to provide defense counsel to all in need.
The law requires that defendants have adequate time and facilities to prepare their defense, and judges routinely granted requests to extend preparation time. Defendants and their attorneys have the right to access government-held evidence relevant to their cases, but courts did not always respect this right. Defendants have the right to be present at trial, confront witnesses against them, and present witnesses and evidence on their own behalf. By law defendants may not be compelled to testify or confess guilt, and judges generally respected the law during trial. There were numerous reports that the SSF coerced suspects into confessing guilt. There were also reports that judges accepted confessions obtained through torture despite defendants’ protests and failed to order investigations when defendants alleged torture during their trial. The law provides for the right to appeal, and this provision was respected.
The RDF routinely tried military offenders and civilians who previously served in the RDF before military tribunals, which rendered sentences of fines, imprisonment, or both. Military courts provided defendants with similar rights as civilian courts, including the right of appeal and access to government-held evidence relevant to their cases. Defendants often appeared before military tribunals without legal counsel due to the cost of hiring private attorneys and the unwillingness of some attorneys to defend individuals accused of crimes against state security. The law stipulates military courts may try civilian accomplices of soldiers accused of crimes. The government did not release figures on the number of civilians tried as co-perpetrators or accomplices of military personnel.
In 2012 the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) turned over its remaining genocide cases to a Tanzania-based branch of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT). The MICT continued to prosecute genocide suspects (see section 5).
Political Prisoners and Detainees
There were reports local officials and the SSF briefly detained some individuals who disagreed publicly with government decisions or policies. Numerous individuals identified by international and domestic human rights groups as political prisoners remained in prison, including Victoire Ingabire, Bernard Ntaganda, Deo Mushayidi, and Theoneste Niyitegeka.
Former 2003 presidential candidate Theoneste Niyitegeka remained in prison following his 2008 conviction and sentence to 15 years in prison for complicity in genocide. In February the FDU-Inkingi party claimed Niyitegeka was beaten and tortured in Mpanga prison. Prison officials denied the reports of mistreatment and transferred Niyitegeka to Rusizi prison. International and domestic human rights organizations claimed the charges against Niyitegeka were politically motivated and there were serious irregularities in Niyitegeka’s appeal proceedings in sector-level courts, which followed his acquittal by the community justice “gacaca” court system.
On June 4, authorities released PS-Imberakuri party founder Bernard Ntaganda from prison after he served a four-year sentence. Ntaganda alleged authorities beat him and denied medical care during his time in prison.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
The judiciary was generally independent and impartial in civil matters. Mechanisms exist for citizens to file lawsuits in civil matters, including for violations of human rights. They may appeal to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the East African Court of Justice, but none did so. The Office of the Ombudsman processes claims of judicial wrongdoing on an administrative basis. According to a LAF study released in 2012, 78 percent of judgments in favor of claimants were not fully enforced within three months, as required by law.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
Although the constitution and law prohibit such actions, there were numerous reports the government monitored homes, movements, telephone calls, e-mail, other private communications, and personal and institutional data. There were reports of government informants working within international NGOs, local civil society organizations (CSOs), religious organizations, and other social institutions.
The penal code provides legal protection against unauthorized use of personal data by private entities, although these provisions were not invoked during the year.
RPF cadres regularly visited citizens’ homes to demand contributions to the political party and the government’s Agaciro Development Fund, and there were some reports of persons being denied public services if they had not contributed. Despite orders from cabinet ministers not to do so, there were reports that local leaders, employers, and others coerced persons into donating one month’s salary to the Agaciro Development Fund.
Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The constitution provides for freedom of speech and press “in conditions prescribed by the law,” but the government restricted these rights. Despite establishing a self-regulatory media commission, the government intimidated and arrested journalists who expressed views it deemed critical on sensitive topics or who it believed had violated the law or journalistic standards. Journalists reported that government agents questioned, detained, and at times threatened bodily harm or death in response to reporting that the government considered critical. Numerous journalists practiced self-censorship.
Freedom of Speech: Individuals could criticize the government publicly or privately on policy implementation and some other issues, but criticism of the presidency generally was not tolerated. Laws prohibiting divisionism, genocide ideology, and genocide denial continued to discourage citizens from expressing viewpoints that might be construed as promoting societal divisions. The law prohibits the propagation of ideas based on “ethnic, regional, racial, religious, language, or other divisive characteristics.” Public incitement to “genocide ideology” or “divisionism,” which includes discrimination and sectarianism, is punishable by five to nine years in prison and fines of 100,000 to one million Rwandan francs ($151 to $1,510). The 2012 penal code expanded former provisions that prohibited the display of contempt for the head of state or other high-level public officials to include administrative authorities or other public servants, with sentences of one to two years in prison and fines of 50,000 to 500,000 Rwandan francs ($76 to $755). Slander of foreign and international officials and dignitaries remains illegal, with sentences of one to three years in prison. The 2012 penal code revised the crime of “spreading rumors aimed at inciting the population to rise against the regime” to “spreading false information with intent to create a hostile international opinion against the Rwandan state,” with much more severe penalties, including life in prison for acts committed during wartime and seven to 10 years in prison for acts committed during peacetime.
On August 29, the government charged retired brigadier general Frank Rusagara and retired colonel Tom Byabagamba in the Nyamirambo Military Court with spreading rumors intended to incite the population to rise up against the government, making false statements intended to impugn the government, insulting the president, and encouraging RPF party members to dialogue with members of the Rwandan National Congress in addition to other state security charges, including possession of illegal firearms.
In August 2013 the government signed into law a revised genocide ideology law that introduced international definitions for genocide and narrowed the scope of what constitutes “genocide ideology” and related offences to a more specific range of actions and statements. Specifically, the law states that “genocidal ideology” must be clearly linked to specific acts or statements, rather than the broader “aggregate of thoughts” standard defined in the 2008 law. International and local human rights organizations, including HRW and the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LIPRODHOR), welcomed the revised law but expressed concern that, despite clearer protections and narrower definitions, the government still could use the law to restrict freedom of speech and press.
The government investigated and prosecuted individuals accused of threatening or harming genocide survivors and witnesses or of espousing genocide ideology, which the law defines as dehumanizing an individual or a group with the same characteristics by threatening, intimidating, defaming, inciting hatred, negating the genocide, taking revenge, altering testimony or evidence, killing, planning to kill, or attempting to kill someone.
The government reported prosecutions for divisionism and “genocide ideology-related crimes” declined from 772 cases from July 2012 through 2013 to 20 cases from January to August.
Press Freedoms: Vendors sold both private and government-owned newspapers published in English, French, and Kinyarwanda. There were 53 newspapers, journals, and other publications registered with the government, although fewer than 10 published regularly. Sporadically published independent newspapers maintained positions both in support of and contrary to or critical of the government. There were 27 radio stations (six government-owned and 21 independent), one government-run television station, and five independent television stations.
A set of five media laws passed in 2013 granted greater press freedoms but had no discernable effect on press freedom. Under these laws, professional journalists no longer are required to hold a journalism degree. The Media High Council, which previously had the power to suspend newspapers, served in a “capacity-building” role. The laws established the Rwanda Media Commission (RMC), a self-regulatory body that oversaw the media and accredited journalists.
Despite these reforms, media professionals reported government officials sought to influence reporting and warned journalists against reporting information deemed sensitive or critical of the government. The government frequently interfered in the work of the ostensibly independent RMC.
On October 24, the government shut down radio frequencies carrying the BBC’s Kinyarwanda service following a documentary about the Rwandan genocide that BBC Two broadcast October 1 in the United Kingdom. The government and civil society groups alleged that the documentary constituted a denial of the genocide, which is a crime under Rwandan law, and members of parliament alleged the BBC had engaged in hate speech. The chairman of the RMC criticized the contents of the documentary but opposed suspending the BBC; however, in contravention of laws on media self-regulation the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority ordered the BBC to be taken off the air.
Under the 2013 media laws, journalists must refrain from reporting items that violate “confidentiality in the national security and national integrity” and “confidentiality of judicial proceedings, parliamentary sessions, and cabinet deliberations in camera.” The laws provide journalists the freedom to investigate, express opinions, and “seek, receive, give, and broadcast information and ideas through any media.” Censorship of information is explicitly prohibited, although censorship occurred. The laws restrict these freedoms if journalists “jeopardize the general public order and good morals, an individual’s right to honor and reputation in the public eye and to the right to inviolability of a person’s private life and family.” Authorities may seize journalists’ material and information if a “media offense” occurs but only if a court orders it. Courts may compel journalists to reveal confidential sources in the event of an investigation or criminal proceeding. Persons wanting to start a media outlet must apply with the “competent public organ.” All media rights and prohibitions apply to persons writing for websites.
Violence and Harassment: There were reports police and the SSF at times detained and harassed journalists, such as in April and May during a security operation focused on alleged networks of Rwandan National Congress and FDLR supporters. The government did not expel any resident members of the media from the country. In March the government refused entry upon arrival to foreign journalist Steve Terrill, citing an article linking Terrill to a narcotics arrest in the United States. Terrill alleged the government refused him entry due to his reporting on a Twitter account, run by individuals in President Kagame’s office, which was used to attack government critics. One journalist fled to Uganda after reporting threats from government agents shortly after the genocide commemoration in April; government officials stated the journalist fled in connection with a corruption investigation. Several journalists who fled in recent years remained outside the country.
Censorship or Content Restrictions: The law allows the government to restrict access to some government documents and information, including information on individual privacy and information or statements that are deemed to be slander or defamation.
Authorities released Agnes Uwimana, editor of the Umurabya newspaper, from prison in June after she served a four-year sentence for incitement to civil disobedience, contempt for the head of state, spreading rumors to cause public disorder, denying the genocide, and likening President Kagame to Adolf Hitler. Uwimana reopened Umurabya upon her release.
Radio stations broadcast criticism of government policies, including using popular citizen call-in shows. Some radio stations, including Radio 1, Radio Isango Star, and Radio Salus, had regular call-in shows that featured discussion of government programs or policies. One radio station suspended a morning call-in show in early April after reportedly receiving threats from the government related to an on-air discussion of the arrest of popular musician Kizito Mihigo; the program resumed broadcasting several weeks later.
Libel Laws/National Security: Defamation (libel and slander) is a criminal offense punishable by fines and imprisonment. Libel laws generally were not used to suppress the publication of material that criticized government policies or government officials.
Internet Freedom
The new media laws include the right of all citizens to “receive, disseminate, or send information through internet,” including the right to start and maintain a website. All provisions of the media laws apply to web-based publications. Restrictions such as website blocking remained in place, however. There were numerous reports that the government monitored e-mail and internet chat rooms. Individuals and groups could engage in the peaceful expression of views via the internet, including by e-mail, but were subject to monitoring. There were reports monitoring led to detention and interrogation of individuals by the SSF. The government announced plans to build a 4G wireless broadband network in order to provide internet access to 95 percent of the population by 2015. According to the International Telecommunication Union, 8 percent of the population used the internet in 2012.
Government-run social media accounts were used to debate and at times intimidate individuals who posted online comments considered critical of the government. In March, the Washington Post reported that a Twitter account purporting to represent the views of a private individual was run by President Kagame’s office and used to attack and attempt to discredit individuals deemed hostile to Rwanda. The Presidency deleted the account and tweeted that the staff who had managed the account were disciplined.
The government at times blocked access within the country to several websites critical of its policies. Such sites included diaspora-run websites, such as Umuvugizi and Le Profete.
There was one report of a cyberattack against an opposition website in which progovernment messages were posted without the involvement of site administrators.
Academic Freedom and Cultural Events
The government generally did not restrict academic freedom or cultural events, but authorities frequently suspended secondary and university students for divisionism or engaging in genocide ideology, which led to self-censorship.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Freedom of Assembly
The constitution and law provide for freedom of assembly, but the UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of assembly and association, Maina Kiai, reported in January that “peaceful protests voicing dissent and criticizing government policies are reportedly not allowed.” Authorities may legally require advance notice for public meetings and demonstrations but must respond to such requests within one week or 15 days, depending on the type of event. The government limited the types of locations where religious groups could assemble, at times citing municipal zoning regulations as the reason.
In the period preceding the September 2013 Chamber of Deputies’ elections, opposition parties reported local officials at times denied permission for political rallies or instructed citizens not to attend the rallies.
Freedom of Association
While the constitution provides for freedom of association, the government limited the right. The law requires private organizations to register. While the government generally granted licenses, it impeded the formation of new political parties and restricted political party activities (see section 3). In addition the government imposed difficult and burdensome NGO registration and renewal requirements, especially on international NGOs, as well as time-consuming requirements for annual financial and activity reports (see section 5).
d. Freedom of Movement, Internally Displaced Persons, Protection of Refugees, and Stateless Persons
The constitution and law provide for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation, and the government generally respected these rights.
The government generally cooperated with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organizations in providing protection and assistance to internally displaced persons, refugees, returning refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, and other persons of concern.
The UNHCR recommended that countries invoke the “ceased circumstances” clause for Rwandans who fled their country between 1959 and 1998. The cessation clause forms part of the 1951 Refugee Convention and may be applied when fundamental and durable changes in a refugee’s country of origin, such that they no longer have a well-founded fear of persecution, remove the need for international protection. Both the UNHCR and the government agreed that since the end of the civil war and the 1994 genocide, the country has been peaceful, and more than three million exiled Rwandans have returned. Many of the estimated 100,000 Rwandans who continued to live outside the country–mainly in eastern, central, and southern Africa–remained unwilling to be repatriated, citing fear of persecution by the government.
On April 23, Rwandan SSF reportedly detained Norbert Manirafasha, a refugee under UNHCR protection, in Goma, the DRC, and forcibly repatriated him to Rwanda (see section 1.b.).
On October 3, a military court sentenced Joel Mutabazi to life in prison and Innocent Kalisa to 25 years in prison on state security charges. Mutabazi and Kalisa, refugees under UNHCR protection, were arrested and deported from Uganda in October 2013. The UNHCR, HRW, and AI condemned the deportation of Mutabazi as a violation of the principle of nonrefoulement. The military court rejected Mutabazi’s argument of illegal refoulement, stating that the convention on refugees does not preclude prosecuting citizens living abroad from criminal acts. Rwanda had issued an Interpol arrest warrant for Mutabazi prior to his arrest and deportation from Uganda.
Foreign Travel: The law allows a judge to deprive convicted persons of the right to travel abroad as a stand-alone punishment or as punishment following imprisonment. Authorities denied or confiscated passports of political opponents and their relatives.
Exile: The law prohibits forced exile. Some political dissidents, journalists, social activists, and former “security” detainees who claimed harassment and intimidation by the government and left the country in previous years, remained in self-imposed exile. There were no reports of departures during the year.
In September 2013 the City of Kigali seized ownership of the United Trade Center, a shopping mall owned by Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa, a Rwandan businessman living in self-imposed exile in South Africa, and during the year the government reportedly seized Ayabatwa’s remaining assets, including a tea plantation and his personal residence. The government asserted the assets were abandoned property.
Emigration and Repatriation: According to the UNHCR, the government accepted more than 27,000 nationals returning from other countries from 2011 to October 2014, most of whom settled in their districts of origin. The government worked with the UNHCR and other aid organizations to assist the resettled returnees.
The government continued to intern former Congolese M23 combatants in a detention facility in Ngoma, but nearly half of the combatants fled the facility during the year or in late 2013.
The government continued to accept former Rwandan combatants who returned from the DRC. The Rwandan Demobilization and Reintegration Commission, with international support, placed adult former combatants in a three-month re-education program at Mutobo Demobilization Center in Northern Province. The Musanze Child Rehabilitation Center, relocated from Muhazi, Eastern Province, treated former child combatants in Northern Province. After a three-month re-education period, each adult former combatant was enrolled automatically in the RDF Reserve Force and received approximately 60,000 Rwandan francs ($91) and permission to return home. Two months later each former combatant received an additional 120,000 Rwandan francs ($181).
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)
From July to December 2013, Tanzania expelled 14,461 Rwandans who it claimed were living illegally in Tanzania. The rate of deportations declined significantly during the year, with 61 deported Rwandan citizens registered. The government resettled the deportees to their home communities in Rwanda and provided resettlement support including housing and vocational training.
Protection of Refugees
Access to Asylum: The law provides for the granting of asylum or refugee status, and the government has established a system for providing protection to refugees.
The UNHCR, with government support, continued to assist approximately 73,000 refugees and asylum seekers, 99 percent of whom were from the DRC. Other refugees were from Angola, Burundi, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda.
Human rights organizations reported that Israel deported several dozen Eritrean asylum seekers to Rwanda during the year; some were subsequently transported to Uganda. There were allegations the government of Rwanda worked with Israel in support of the deportations.
Refugee Abuse: Authorities improved security and physical protection within refugee camps. The RNP worked with the UNHCR to station police officers in refugee camps, and refugees were free to file complaints at area police stations. Intimidation of police and victims by camp leaders and youth gangs contributed to a general sense of impunity within the refugee community, especially in relation to gender-based violence (GBV).
Employment: No laws restrict refugee employment, and the Ministry of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs supported efforts by refugees to work in the local economy. Officials acknowledged very few refugees were able to find local employment, however. Refugee camps offered periodic job training and livelihood programs to assist refugees in finding or creating income-generating opportunities.
Access to Basic Services: Refugees had access to public education, public health care, housing within the refugee camps, law enforcement, courts and judicial procedures, and legal assistance. The UNHCR funded education through grade nine but did not provide tuition at the secondary and university levels.
Durable Solutions: Rwanda is not a refugee resettlement country. The government assisted the safe, voluntary return of refugees to their countries and sought to improve local integration of refugees in protracted stays by permitting them to accept local employment, move freely in the country, and by establishing markets to facilitate trade between refugees and local citizens. The government did not facilitate the naturalization of refugees resident in the country.
Temporary Protection: The government provided temporary protection to individual asylum seekers who might not qualify as refugees.
Section 3. Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government
The constitution and law provide citizens the ability to change their government through free and fair elections, but government restrictions on the formation of opposition parties limited that ability. The RPF and allied parties controlled the government and legislature, and its candidates continued to dominate elections at all levels.
Elections and Political Participation
Recent Elections: Elections for parliament’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, in September 2013 were peaceful and orderly, but international observers reported they did not meet the generally recognized standards for free and fair elections. Observers reported they were denied access to the vote tabulation process at the polling station, district, and national level, which undermined confidence in the integrity of the results. Opposition parties experienced difficulties in registering ahead of the election, depriving voters of a meaningful choice at the polls.
Political Parties and Political Participation: The constitution outlines a multi-party system but provides few rights for parties and their candidates. There were some reports the RPF pressured youth into joining the party during mandatory “ingando” civic and military training camps held after secondary school graduation. There were also reports the RPF cadres coerced political donations from both party members and nonmembers. Some parties were not able to operate freely, and parties and candidates faced legal sanctions if found guilty of engaging in divisive acts, destabilizing national unity, threatening territorial integrity, or undermining national security. The government’s enforcement of laws against genocide ideology, divisionism, and spreading false information with intent to create a hostile international opinion against the state discouraged debate or criticism of the government and resulted in occasional detentions.
The government no longer required but continued strongly to encourage all registered political parties to join the National Consultative Forum for Political Organizations (NCFPO), which sought to promote consensus among political parties, and required member parties to support publicly policy positions developed through dialogue. At year’s end all registered parties were members of the NCFPO. Government officials praised the NCFPO for promoting political unity, while critics argued it stifled political competition and public debate.
To register as a political party, an organization must present a list of at least 200 members, with at least five members in each of the 30 districts, and it must reserve at least 30 percent of its leadership positions for women and provide a written party statute signed by a notary.
The DGPR was registered officially as a political party in August 2013, after the government blocked previous attempts to register it in 2009 and 2010. Authorities granted the registration one working day before candidate lists for the September 2013 Chamber of Deputies elections were due, and the DGPR was unable to register candidates for the election. DGPR leaders reported the party was permitted to publish policy proposals as alternatives to RPF policy and hold small meetings with party supporters, although the DGPR also stated that local officials often threatened party members with dismissal from employment or the withholding of state services unless they dissociated with the party. On June 27, the organizing secretary for DGPR, Jean Damascene Munyeshyaka, disappeared after meeting with an unknown individual in Nyamata town, Bugesera District (see section 1.b.).
Party leaders for the unregistered Pacte Democratique du Peuple-Imanzi (PDP-Imanzi) and a splinter party, the People’s Democratic Alliance (PDA), continued to seek permission to hold a founding party congress following the cancellation of the PDP-Imanzi congress in Gasabo District in November 2013. The Ministry of Local Government and local officials continued to deny PDP-Imanzi and PDA permission to hold such meetings, citing the two parties’ connections to Deo Mushayidi, who remained incarcerated on state security charges.
Opposition leaders reported police arbitrarily arrested some members of PS-Imberakuri (Bernard Ntaganda faction), FDU-Inkingi, PDP-Imanzi, and the PDA. Party members reported receiving threats because of their association with those parties.
In accordance with the constitution, which states a majority party in the Chamber of Deputies may not fill more than 50 percent of cabinet positions, independents and members of other political parties allied with the RPF held key positions in government, including that of prime minister. PS-Imberakuri and the DGPR were not represented in the cabinet.
Participation of Women and Minorities: The constitution requires that at least 30 percent of the seats in parliament’s Chamber of Deputies be reserved for women. At year’s end there were eight women in the 25-seat Senate and 51 women in the 80-seat Chamber of Deputies. Women filled 11 of 29 cabinet positions.
Section 4. Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government
The law provides criminal penalties for corruption by officials and private persons transacting business with the government that include imprisonment and fines. The law also allows citizens who report requests for bribes by government officials to receive financial rewards when officials are prosecuted. While the government continued to implement anticorruption laws and encourage citizens to report requests for bribes, corruption remained a problem.
Corruption: Transparency International Rwanda and other CSOs reported the government investigated and prosecuted reports of corruption among police and government officials. Police frequently undertook internal investigations of corruption among police officers and sting operations against them. The Office of the Ombudsman released quarterly lists of persons convicted of corruption, but journalists and other observers noted that corruption investigations focused on local officials and private persons. The government prosecuted only one senior official, a permanent secretary in the Ministry of Local Government, for corruption during the year. Authorities removed but did not prosecute cabinet ministers and other senior officials reportedly involved in corruption. For example, in January a group of farmers petitioned the government for recourse after the Ministry of Agriculture and the Rwanda Development Bank provided sick cattle from Kenya to them instead of European cattle the farmers had agreed to purchase. Authorities removed–but did not investigate or prosecute–the agriculture minister and the ministry’s permanent secretary
There were reports district officials manipulated or falsified statistics in order to meet development targets.
International and domestic investors reported the government generally supported the establishment of new businesses. Nevertheless, investors reported contract disputes with the government and stated they were subject to arbitrary tax, immigration, and investment rules.
Investors, particularly those residing abroad, at times encountered business difficulties because of political disputes. For example, in June investor Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa alleged the government illegally seized ownership of his shares in the Nshili Kivu Tea factory as well as his private residence in Kigali. The seizure followed the government’s 2013 expropriation of Ayabatwa’s ownership of the Union Trade Center, a $20 million shopping mall he built in 2006, after he went into self-imposed exile in South Africa. Rujugiro filed a lawsuit against the government with the East African Court of Justice, which continued at year’s end.
Anticorruption groups faced intimidation. On July 29, a gunman approached Transparency International Rwanda’s headquarters and made threats against chairperson Marie Immaculee Ingabire. Separate security breaches were reported at the home of the organization’s senior staff member. The RNP investigated both cases but made no arrests. The government announced the arrest of two RNP officers in connection with the 2013 murder of Transparency International staff member, Gustave Makonene; their cases were pending at year’s end.
The NPPA prosecuted civil servants, police, and other officials for fraud, petty corruption, illegal awarding of public tenders, and mismanagement of public assets. The NPPA, under the Ministry of Justice, is responsible for prosecuting police abuse cases. The RNP Inspectorate of Services investigated cases of police misconduct, and in March the RNP launched an anticorruption unit. The RNP dismissed 78 officers for corruption related charges from July 2013 to July 2014, suspended an unknown number of additional officers for corruption, abuse of power, or misconduct, and imposed administrative punishment for indiscipline. The RNP referred criminal offenses committed by police to the NPPA, and several prosecutions were underway at year’s end. The RNP advertised a toll-free hotline number in the local radio and press and provided deposit boxes in many communities to encourage citizens to report both positive and negative behavior by police and the LDF.
The Office of the Auditor General worked to prevent corruption, including by investigating improper ministerial tendering practices. The RNP and the NPPA used the auditor general’s annual report to pursue investigations into government-owned businesses. The Office of the Ombudsman led the National Anticorruption Council and had an active good governance program and several local-level anticorruption units. The Office of the Ombudsman launched a public comment initiative and installed information boxes in government offices and police stations to solicit anonymous reports of corruption but stated that it received few reports. Between January and June, the office investigated 174 cases of embezzlement and corruption and referred 27 cases for prosecution, the majority of which involved misuse of public funds. In 2013 the Office of the Ombudsman was granted legal authority to prosecute corruption cases, but it had not hired prosecutors by year’s end. The Rwanda Governance Board monitored governance more broadly and promoted mechanisms to control corruption. The Rwanda Revenue Authority’s Anticorruption Unit had a code of conduct and an active mechanism for internal discipline. The National Tender Board, the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency, and the National Bureau of Standards also enforced their own regulations.
Financial Disclosure: The constitution and law require annual reporting of income and assets by public officials as well as reporting them upon entry into and exit from office. There is no requirement for public disclosure of those assets except in cases where irregularities are discovered. The Office of the Ombudsman, which monitors and verifies disclosures, reported that 98 percent of officials complied with the requirement in 2013. In cases of noncompliance, the Office of the Ombudsman has the power to garnish wages and impose administrative sanctions, which often involved loss of position or prosecution.
Public Access to Information: The government promulgated the Access to Information Law in March 2013. The law grants wide access to government information upon request and in some cases to information held by private entities when disclosure is deemed to be in the public interest. The government may limit access to information if its release is deemed to be against the public interest or if the information pertains to national security, as determined by the Prosecutor General’s Office. During the year no formal challenges under the law were taken to court. The government granted several requests for information.
Illicit Trade in Natural Resources: The government utilized a “bagging and tagging” system to aid companies with regional and international due diligence requirements related to conflict minerals. The government maintained a ban on the purchase or sale of undocumented minerals from neighboring countries. Observers and government officials reported smugglers succeeded in trafficking an unquantifiable amount of undocumented minerals through the country.
Section 5. Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
Several domestic and international human rights groups operated in the country, investigating and publishing their findings on human rights cases. Some human rights groups reported that government officials generally were cooperative and responsive to their privately expressed views. Other groups indicated the government was intolerant of criticism, suspicious of local and international human rights observers, and often rejected their criticism as biased and uninformed. Human rights NGOs expressed fear of the government, reported SSF monitoring of their activities, and self-censored their comments. An international NGO working on human rights issues experienced delays during the annual registration process that it attributed to government opposition to the group’s work.
In June the Justice Ministry published an assessment of the NGO HRW in the New Times newspaper that claimed HRW was engaged in a “deliberate, sustained, and politically motivated propaganda campaign against the Government of Rwanda” and functioned as the “campaign mouthpiece” of the FDLR armed group. HRW issued a statement rejecting allegations made in the assessment.
A few domestic NGOs–including LIPRODHOR, the Youth Association for Human Rights Promotion and Development (AJPRODHO), the Rwandan Association for the Defense of Human Rights, and the League for Human Rights in the Great Lakes Region–focused on human rights abuses.
Attempts by LIPRODHOR’s former leadership to retake control of the organization continued. The former leadership was deposed in July 2013 after several LIPRODHOR members called an extraordinary meeting; observers noted the meeting violated LIPRODHOR’s bylaws and that the leadership was replaced due to its decision to withdraw LIPRODHOR from the Collective of Leagues and Associations for the Defense of Human Rights, which the LIPRODHOR leadership accused of being progovernment. In August the Nyarugenge District Court ruled against the former leadership in a suit filed concerning their replacement.
A progovernment NGO, the Rwanda Civil Society Platform, managed and directed some NGOs through umbrella groups, which theoretically aggregated NGOs working in particular thematic sectors. Many observers believed the government controlled some of these groups.
In January the Office of the Prime Minister published regulations that require NGOs and CSOs to participate in Joint Action and Development Forums (JADFs) at the district and sector level. The regulations grant local governments broad powers to regulate activities, levy fees, and bar organizations from operating in districts or sectors if they do not comply. NGO leaders expressed concern that the JADF structure may further tighten government control over NGOs and CSOs; the government responded that the JADF structure was intended to coordinate but not direct the activities of NGOs and CSOs.
In 2012 the government passed two NGO laws.
The law on local NGOs moved their oversight from the Ministry of Local Government to the Rwanda Governance Board, replaced annual registration with one-time registration, and required submission of annual budgets and reports. The law allows local NGOs to lobby for political causes but not candidates and permits government funding in exchange for greater government control over budgets and activities. Local NGOs welcomed the advent of one-time registration and permission to advocate for their causes but also worried the 2012 law would serve to increase government interference and control of programming.
The law on international NGOs allows for registration in up to five-year increments, depending on the duration of an NGO’s funding, but keeps oversight with the Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration, which falls under NISS. The government granted single-year registration to most international NGOs. International NGOs widely criticized the draft ministerial order implementing the 2012 law, particularly provisions that would give the government authority to preapprove hiring and personnel decisions by international NGOs. In response the government delayed publication of the ministerial order, which was under review at year’s end. In recent years the government limited the number of foreign staff granted visas to work for international NGOs.
Local and international NGOs often found the registration process difficult, in part because they must present their objectives, plan of action, and detailed financial information to the local authorities of every district in which they would like to work. Another concern was the requirement to sign a memorandum of understanding with relevant government ministries before presenting registration applications to the Directorate General of Immigration. International NGOs reported that the government used the registration process to pressure them into financially supporting government programs and supporting government policies. The government threatened legal action against organizations that did not submit reports or registration paperwork on time and threatened not to register NGOs whose scope of work was outside of government development policies or programs. Many international and some local NGOs complained that government delays and unpublished requirements caused late submissions and that the regulatory environment worsened.
The United Nations or Other International Bodies: The government sometimes cooperated with international human rights bodies but criticized HRW, Reporters without Borders, Freedom House, and AI as well as the United Nations and several of its agencies, as being inaccurate and biased. The government reportedly conducted surveillance on certain international and domestic NGOs. Some NGOs reported authorities pressured individuals affiliated with them to provide information on their activities, and several NGOs expressed concerns that intelligence agents infiltrated their organizations to gather information, influence leadership decisions, or create internal problems.
There were reports the government sought to subvert the role of the NGOs and CSOs in providing independent assessments to the UN Universal Periodic Review on Human Rights. NGO staff reported they were told not to publish assessments critical of the government or that differed from the government’s official position.
There were isolated reports of government officials asking international NGOs to hand over their assets, programs, and staff to local NGOs and government agencies.
Government Human Rights Bodies: The independent and adequately funded Office of the Ombudsman operated with the cooperation of executive agencies and took action on cases of corruption and other abuses, including human rights cases (see sections 1.e. and 4).
The government funded and cooperated with the NHRC. According to many observers, the NHRC did not have adequate resources to investigate all reported violations and remained biased in favor of the government. Some victims of human rights abuses stated they did not report abuses to the NHRC because they perceived it as biased and feared retribution by the SSF.
In 2012 the ICTR, based in Tanzania, turned over its remaining genocide cases to a Tanzania-based branch of the MICT. The MICT continued to prosecute genocide suspects. From 1994 through year’s end, the ICTR completed 75 cases, with 52 convictions, 11 convictions pending appeal, and 12 acquittals. At year’s end there were nine fugitives. The ICTR neither indicted nor tried any RPF members from 1994 through 2012.
Section 6. Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons
The constitution provides that all citizens are equal before the law, without discrimination based on ethnic origin, tribe, clan, color, sex, region, social origin, religion or faith, opinion, economic status, culture, language, social status, or physical or mental disability. The constitution and law are silent on sexual orientation and gender identity. The government generally enforced these provisions, although problems remained.
Women
Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape and spousal rape, and the government handled rape cases as a judicial priority. Penalties for rape ranged from five years’ to life imprisonment with fines of 500,000 to one million Rwandan francs ($755 to $1,510). Penalties for spousal rape ranged from two months’ to life imprisonment with fines of 100,000 to 300,000 Rwandan francs ($151 to $453).
The law provides for imprisonment of three to six months for threatening, harassing, or beating one’s spouse. Domestic violence against women was common. Although many incidents remained within the extended family and were not reported or prosecuted, government officials encouraged the reporting of domestic violence, and the RNP stated that reporting of such cases increased. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported in 2010 that 48 percent of adolescent girls believed a husband was justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances. According to the National Institute of Statistics’ Gender Monitoring Office, a 2010 survey noted that 41 percent of women and girls older than age 15 had experienced physical violence and 22 percent had experienced sexual violence.
Police headquarters in Kigali had a hotline for domestic violence. Several other government ministries also had free GBV hotlines. Each of the 78 police stations nationwide had its own gender desk, an average of three officers trained in handling domestic and gender-based violence, and a public outreach program. The RNP Directorate against GBV handled all cases of such violence and child protection. Fifteen one-stop centers were established throughout the country, providing medical, psychological, legal, and police assistance at no cost to victims of domestic violence. The government continued to expand the network of one-stop centers in hospitals, districts, and refugee camps.
The government continued a whole-of-government, multi-stakeholder campaign against GBV, child abuse, and other types of domestic violence. GBV was a required training module for police and military at all levels.
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, FGM/C was not widely practiced in the country. The government ratified the Maputo Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003), which prohibits “all forms of female genital mutilation, scarification, medicalization and para-medicalization of female genital mutilation and all other practices in order to eradicate them.”
Sexual Harassment: The law prohibits sexual harassment by employers or any other person and provides for penalties of two months’ to two years’ imprisonment and fines from 100,000 to 500,000 Rwandan francs ($151 to $755). Nevertheless, sexual harassment remained common. According to a 2010 Transparency Rwanda study, gender-based corruption was perceived to be fundamentally linked to recruitment practices and to the determination of salary and other benefits. In the study, 21 percent of female respondents believed their salary determination was not objective, and some claimed their salaries were determined by their willingness to have sex with company executives. The study also found, in contrast, that respondents believed promotion, evaluation, and opportunities for training or travel were based on more objective and transparent criteria. Fifty-six percent of interviewees stated they did not report gender-based corruption cases. The City of Kigali launched a program to combat sexual harassment of women and girls in public spaces; it found that 56 percent of women in the country reported verbal or physical sexual harassment in public places and 42 percent of women in Kigali reported being afraid of walking to school alone. The effectiveness of government enforcement efforts was unknown.
Reproductive Rights: The government encouraged citizens to have no more children than they could afford but also respected the rights of couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing, and timing of children, to have the information and means to do so, and to attain the highest standard of reproductive health free from discrimination, coercion, and violence. The government made available reproductive health services and contraceptives to all citizens regardless of age, sex, or ethnicity. The government promoted the involvement of men in family planning decisions and launched a campaign to reduce social stigma against vasectomies. More than 90 percent of the population participated in private or government-sponsored health insurance plans, and the poorest of the population received free coverage. There was a small copayment for obstetric services, but this fee was waived for women who completed the recommended four prenatal care visits. Insurance plans did not provide adequate coverage for more expensive medical care.
According to the United Nations, the estimated maternal mortality ratio in 2013 was 320 deaths per 100,000 live births, with a lifetime risk of maternal death of one in 66. Major factors influencing maternal mortality included lack of skilled health-care attendants at birth, lack of access to health facilities due to cost or distance, and unhygienic conditions. In 2013, 2.4 percent of the 1300 maternal deaths were AIDS related. Between 2005 and 2010, skilled attendance at birth rose from 39 percent to 69 percent, according to the 2010 Demographic and Health Survey. The proportion of assisted births at health facilities increased from 45 percent in 2007-08 to 69 percent in 2010.
In 2013 the government reported that the use of modern methods of contraception among married women was 44 percent; the United Nations reported the use of modern contraceptives increased from 26 percent to 44 percent between 2008 and 2010. The Guttmacher Institute and the National University of Rwanda estimated that 19 percent of married women and 56 percent of unmarried sexually active girls and women between ages 15 and 29 had an unmet need for contraception in 2010. An estimated 47 percent of pregnancies were unintended, of which an estimated 22 percent were aborted. The study found that of some 60,000 abortions performed annually, approximately 18,000 required treatment for complications, but 30 percent of women needing post-abortion care did not receive adequate treatment in a health facility. This situation was most acute in rural areas, and observers attributed it both to insufficient facilities for post-abortion care and the reluctance of women to seek medical help due to stigma or prosecution. Minors below age 14 needed parental permission for medical treatment, including for contraceptives. HIV testing was available to children age 14 and older.
Discrimination: Women have the same legal status and are entitled to the same rights as men. The law allows women to inherit property from their fathers and husbands, and couples may make their own legal property arrangements. Women experienced some difficulties pursuing property claims due to lack of knowledge, procedural bias against women in inheritance matters, multiple spousal claims due to polygyny, and the threat of GBV. The law requires equal pay for equal work and prohibits discrimination in hiring decisions (see section 7.d.). Women, however, were more likely to be paid in kind than in cash, and only one-third of married women with earnings made as much as their husband.
After the 1994 genocide, which left many women as heads of households, women assumed a larger role in the formal sector, and many operated their own businesses. According to the National Institute of Statistics 2012 Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey, 28 percent of households were headed by women, and 47 percent of these households were below the poverty line, compared with 45 percent of all households. Women’s work was more concentrated in the agricultural sector, with 82 percent of women engaged in agricultural work, compared with 61 percent of men. The other main occupations in which women found work were sales and commerce, which engaged similar proportions of men and women.
Women comprised 64 percent of the Chamber of Deputies and one-third of cabinet ministers, but they represented a minority in district and sector-level government positions. According to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce’s 2011 Establishment Census, women managed approximately 26 percent of all formal enterprises. Men owned the major assets of most households, particularly those at the lower end of the economic spectrum, making bank credit inaccessible to many women and rendering it difficult to start or expand a business.
The government-funded National Women’s Council served as a forum for women’s issues and consulted with the government on land, inheritance, and child protection laws. The Ministry of Gender led government programs to address women’s issues and coordinated programs with other ministries, police, and NGOs, including the national action plan for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security. The government provided scholarships designated for girls in primary and secondary school and loans to rural women. A number of women’s groups actively promoted women’s and children’s concerns, particularly those of widows, orphaned girls, and households headed by children. The government-run Gender Monitoring Office tracked the mainstreaming of gender equality and women’s empowerment throughout all sectors of society and collected gender-disaggregated data to inform policy processes.
Children
Birth Registration: Children derive citizenship from their parents. Children born to two Rwandan parents automatically receive citizenship. Children with one Rwandan parent must apply for citizenship before turning 18. Children born in the country to unknown or stateless parents automatically receive citizenship. Minor children adopted by Rwandans, irrespective of nationality or statelessness, automatically receive citizenship. Children retain their citizenship in the event of dissolution of the parents’ marriage. Births are registered at the sector level upon presentation of a medical birth certificate. Anecdotal evidence indicated a low prevalence of birth registration due to complex procedures and associated penalties for late registration. There were no reports of unregistered births leading to denial of public services.
Education: The government implemented a 12-year basic education program in 2012 that extended free universal public education by three additional years of secondary education and six years of primary education and made three years of secondary education compulsory. Parents were not required to pay tuition fees, although most parents were required to pay unofficial fees to support basic school operations. There was no significant difference between the treatment of or attendance rates of girls and boys.
Child Abuse: While statistics on child abuse were unreliable, such abuse was common within the family, in the village, and at school. Child abuse conviction statistics were not available. The government continued a high-profile public awareness campaign against GBV and child abuse. The government expanded the network of one-stop centers and hospital facilities that offered integrated police, legal, medical, and counseling services to victims of GBV and child abuse.
Early and Forced Marriage: The minimum age for marriage is 21. Between 2000 and 2010, UNICEF reported that the common law marriage rate for children under age 18 was 13 percent. Anecdotal evidence suggested that child marriage was more common in rural areas and refugee camps than in urban areas.
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law considers all sex-based practices carried out on children, regardless of form or method and including FGM/C, to be defilement, which is punishable by life in prison and a fine of 100,000 to one million Rwandan francs ($151 to $1,510). There were no reports of FGM/C perpetrated against children during the year.
Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law provides that sexual relations with a child under age 18 are considered child defilement and are punishable by life in prison and a fine of 100,000 to one million Rwandan francs ($151 to $1,510). According to 2013 statistics from the RNP, statutory rape topped the GBV crime list, representing 47 percent of the total cases reported. The number of cases was not published. A 2013 report by the CSO Rwanda for Justice found the average age of child sexual abuse victims was age nine and 49 percent of the victims were between the ages of four and eight. The report found that neighbors and relatives were the most common perpetrators. In 2012 the director of Nyagatare Juvenile Rehabilitation Center reported that the majority of juvenile detainees were serving time for child defilement (statutory rape), usually six-month sentences. Noting an increase in child sexual abuse and exploitation, UNICEF reported in 2012that child heads of household, especially girls, were increasingly coerced into selling sex in exchange for money, basic goods, or protection.
The law prohibits commercial sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, which are punishable by penalties of six months to seven years in prison and a fine of 500,000 to 20 million Rwandan francs ($755 to $30,200). Conviction statistics were not available.
Child Soldiers: Since the defeat of the M23 armed group in November 2013, there have been no reports of the recruitment of Rwandan children as child soldiers.
The government continued to support the Musanze Child Rehabilitation Center in Northern Province (relocated during the year from Muhazi, Eastern Province), which provided care and social reintegration preparation for children who previously served in armed groups in the DRC. The center provided education, psychosocial support, recreational and cultural activities, medical care, and agricultural vocational training.
Displaced Children: There were numerous street children throughout the country. Authorities gathered street children in transit centers and placed them in rehabilitation centers. Street children processed in one of the Ministry of Gender’s two transit centers or in the sole church-run transit center benefited from better social worker screening than those detained at Kigali City’s Gikondo Transit Center, where conditions and screening were substandard (see section 1.d.). In 2012 the National Commission for Children (NCC) reported it provided psychological counseling, education, and vocational training to 161 former street children between the ages of nine and 16 at the Gitagata Child Rehabilitation Center, the only government-run center for street children. According to center officials, 70 percent of children at Gitagata became street children due to poverty, 20 percent because they were orphaned, and 10 percent due to family conflict. The dilapidated but spacious center mandated a one-year stay, after which children could be reintegrated with their families or paired with foster homes. Conditions and practices varied at 29 privately run rehabilitation centers for street children.
Institutionalized Children: As part of government plans to downsize and eventually phase out orphanages, the NCC reported it reintegrated 622 orphans with their families between March and May 2012 and closed the three worst performing government-run orphanages. Management of orphanages and the Gitagata center transferred from the Ministry of Gender to the NCC in 2012. UNICEF reported the remaining 30 government-run and one privately run child-care institutions provided shelter, basic needs, and rehabilitation for approximately 3,000 orphans and street children. According to the NCC, 70 percent of children in orphanages were not orphans but had either run away or been abandoned by their families. The government worked with international organizations and NGOs to provide vocational training and psychosocial support to orphans and street children, reintegrate them into their communities, and educate parents on how to prevent their children from becoming street children.
International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
Anti-Semitism
There was a very small Jewish community, consisting entirely of foreigners, and there were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.
The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities in employment, education, air travel and other transportation, access to health care, and the provision of other state services, and the government generally enforced these provisions (see section 7.d.). The law also mandates access to public facilities, accommodations for taking national examinations, provision of medical care by the government, and monitoring of implementation by the NHRC. The government generally implemented all of the foregoing provisions. Despite a continuing campaign to create a barrier-free environment for persons with disabilities, accessibility remained a problem throughout the country. For example, civil society groups reported a need for translators fluent in sign language in police stations and courts.
The National Council of Persons with Disabilities estimated there were 3,500 primary school students in special centers established to serve children with disabilities. Few students with disabilities reached the university level because many primary and secondary schools were unable to accommodate their disabilities. Many children with disabilities did not attend primary or secondary school. Although resources were inadequate to train all teachers, the Ministry of Education and UNICEF collaborated to train teachers to be more sensitive in responding to the needs of children with disabilities. For example, in 2012 Murama Primary School in Bugesera District appointed a UNICEF-supported special needs education coordinator for students with hearing and speech disabilities and waived lunch and school supply expenses for children with disabilities as incentives to keep them in school. Institutes of higher education admitted students with disabilities, but only the National University of Rwanda and the Kigali Institute of Education were able to accommodate students with visual disabilities.
There was one government psychiatric referral hospital in Kigali, with district hospitals providing limited psychiatric services. All other mental health facilities were nongovernmental. Facilities were often underequipped and understaffed, although the government worked to improve staffing and equipment in health facilities throughout the country. A judge may commit individuals to Ndera Psychiatric Hospital involuntarily, but district officials must first refer them after counseling and consultation with family members. Gikondo Transit Center officials reported committing persons with disabilities to Ndera involuntarily and without review.
Some citizens viewed disability as a curse or punishment, which could result in social exclusion and sometimes abandonment or the hiding of children from the community.
The National Council of Persons with Disabilities, which assisted government efforts to provide for the rights of persons with disabilities, designated one member with disabilities to the Chamber of Deputies. The National Union of Disability Organizations in Rwanda provided an umbrella civil society platform for advocacy on behalf of persons with disabilities. A disabilities coordination forum was organized every trimester. In 2012 the Ministry of Health formed the Department of Injuries and Disabilities within the Noncommunicable Diseases Division of the Rwanda Biomedical Center.
Persons with mental disabilities were required to submit a medical certificate before they were allowed to vote. Some disabilities advocates complained that requirements for electoral candidates to hold secondary education diplomas or higher degrees, depending on position, disadvantaged persons with disabilities.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Longstanding tensions in the country culminated in the 1994 state-orchestrated genocide in which Rwandans killed between 750,000 and one million of their fellow citizens, including approximately three-quarters of the Tutsi population. Following the killing of the president in 1994, an extremist interim government directed the Hutu-dominated national army, militia groups, and ordinary citizens to kill resident Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The genocide ended later the same year when the predominantly Tutsi RPF, operating out of Uganda and northern Rwanda, defeated the national army and Hutu militias and established an RPF-led government of national unity that included members of eight political parties. Voters elected President Kagame in 2003.
Since 1994 the government has called for national reconciliation and abolished the policies of the former government that created and deepened ethnic cleavages. The government removed all references to ethnicity in official discourse and eliminated ethnic quotas for education, training, and government employment.
In June and July 2013, President Kagame and several other political leaders called for young Hutus to apologize publicly for the genocide on behalf of their parents. In November 2013 cabinet ministers endorsed the Ndi Umunyarwanda (We are Rwandan) program that included as a resolution the statement that “the genocide against Tutsis was committed in the name of Hutus, thus for the real healing of Rwandan society it is indispensable that Hutus whose name was used in the genocide crime apologize to Tutsi victims, denounce such acts and distance themselves from perpetrators, and fight clearly against the genocide ideology and ethnical divisionism.” Several observers noted these proposals suggested that the Hutu ethnic group was collectively responsible for the genocide and contributed to the exacerbation of ethnic tension. Schools, local governments, and other groups utilized the Ndi Umunyarwanda program.
The constitution provides for the eradication of ethnic, regional, and other divisions in society and the promotion of national unity. Most citizens know the regional or ethnic origin of their fellow citizens. Some individuals continued to accuse the government of favoring Tutsis, particularly English-speaking Tutsis, in government employment, admission to professional schooling, recruitment into or promotion within the army, and other matters.
Indigenous People
Beginning in the 1920s, colonial authorities formally assigned “racial” categories to all citizens and required them to carry identity cards indicating their designated ethnicity: Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa. Government authorities continued this practice until after the 1994 genocide. The post-genocide government banned identity card references to ethnicity and prohibited social or political organizations based on ethnic affiliation as “divisionist” or contributing to genocide ideology. As a result, the Twa, who number approximately 34,000, lost their official designation as an ethnic group. The government no longer recognizes groups advocating specifically for Twa needs, and some Twa believed these government policies denied them their rights as an indigenous ethnic group. Nonetheless, the government recognized the Community of Rwandan Potters, an organization focused primarily on Twa community needs, as an advocate for the most marginalized. Most Twa continued to live on the margins of society with very limited access to health care and education, and other citizens viewed them generally as second-class citizens.
Acts of Violence, Discrimination, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
There are no laws that criminalize sexual orientation or consensual same-sex sexual conduct, and cabinet-level government officials expressed support for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. LGBT persons reported societal discrimination and abuse, and LGBT rights groups’ staff reported occasional harassment by neighbors and police.
There were several reports that students at the secondary and university levels were suspended or expelled for same-sex relationships, but authorities did not arrest or prosecute students. The status of the cases was unknown at year’s end.
There were no known reports of physical attacks against LGBT persons, nor were there any reports of LGBT persons fleeing the country due to harassment or attack.
HIV and AIDS Social Stigma
Discrimination against persons living with HIV/AIDS occurred, although such incidents remained rare. According to a 2012 report by AJPRODHO, persons with HIV/AIDS often were denied the right to inheritance in the belief they would die soon. The government actively supported relevant public education campaigns, including establishing HIV/AIDS awareness clubs in secondary schools and making public pronouncements against stigmatization of those with the disease.
According to RDF policy and in keeping with UN guidelines, the military did not permit its members with HIV/AIDS to participate in peacekeeping missions abroad but allowed them to remain in the force.
Section 7. Worker Rights
a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining
The law provides all salaried formal sector workers, except for certain senior public servants, police, and soldiers, the right to form and join independent unions, conduct legal strikes, and bargain collectively. Most provisions of the law generally do not protect family businesses, cooperatives, and informal sector workers.
The law also permits informal sector workers to join unions, conduct strikes, and bargain collectively, although informal workers did not avail themselves of these rights. The law grants “every worker in every enterprise” the right to be a member of a trade union. Informal sector workers are exempt from provisions in the law, “except for issues relating to social security (and) the trade union organizations.”
The law restricts voluntary collective bargaining by requiring prior authorization or approval by authorities and requiring binding arbitration in cases of non-conciliation. The law allows unions to negotiate with employers for an industry-level minimum wage in certain sectors.
The law provides some workers the right to conduct strikes, subject to numerous restrictions. Public servants, soldiers, and employees providing “essential services” are generally not permitted to strike, and participation in unauthorized demonstrations may result in employee dismissal, nonpayment of wages, and civil action against the union. A union’s executive committee must approve any strike, and the union must first try to resolve its differences with management through complex compulsory arbitration, conciliation, and mediation processes prescribed by the Ministry of Public Service and Labor.
Other provisions of the law frequently abrogated these rights. For example, a ministerial order that broadly defines essential services to include public transportation, security, education (during national exams), water and sanitation, and telecommunications severely restricts the right to strike in these fields.
Ministerial orders define the implementation of the labor law; there are no significant gaps between the law and ministerial orders. All unions must register with the Ministry of Public Service and Labor. The application process was cumbersome, lengthy, and costly, and required unions to disclose their membership and property.
The law allows unions to conduct activities without interference, prohibits antiunion discrimination, and requires employers to reinstate workers fired for union activity. Antiunion interference and discrimination are subject to penalties of up to two months in prison and fines of 50,000 to 300,000 Rwandan francs ($76 to $453), which were not sufficient to deter violations. Workers discriminated against or fired due to affiliation with a trade union did not receive restitutive justice or compensation.
There were 31 labor unions organized into three confederations: CESTRAR (Centrale Syndicale des Travailleurs du Rwanda), COTRAF (Congres du Travail et de la Fraternite des Travailleurs), and COSYLI (Conseil National des Organisations Syndicales Libres au Rwanda). All three federations ostensibly were independent, but CESTRAR had close links to the government and the ruling RPF party.
Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining generally were not respected. The government did not enforce applicable laws effectively and restricted these rights. A government-led aggregation of small and medium enterprises into sector-specific cooperatives precluded unionization and led to the shutdown of unions. Authorities forced some unions, such as those for rural workers, to reorganize as labor NGOs, reducing their legal protections and powers. In addition local government officials and employers routinely impeded workers from joining or forming unions. Employers often harassed union members and prohibited workers from meeting during work hours. Employers sometimes dismissed union representatives and members because of their union activities and did not reinstate them.
The government severely limited the right to collective bargaining, and legal mechanisms were inadequate to protect this right. The government was heavily involved in the collective bargaining process, since most union members worked in the public sector. Labor union officials commented that many private sector businesses controlled by the RPF or RDF were off limits to collective bargaining negotiations. The government also controlled collective bargaining with cooperatives. No labor union had an established collective bargaining agreement with the government. Employers, including the government, perpetually delayed agreements to bargain or bargained with employer-controlled unions. Employers across a number of industries, such as mining and construction, employed subcontractors in order to avoid hiring workers with bargaining rights or paying benefits required by law.
In February, Sorwathe Tea, a U.S. firm, renewed its collective bargaining agreement with its employees. In 2012 Sorwathe became the first company in the country to sign a collective bargaining agreement. CESTRAR, COTRAF, and the Ministry of Public Service and Labor participated in the negotiations.
There were neither registered strikes nor anecdotal reports of unlawful strikes during the year.
There were no functioning labor courts or other formal mechanisms to resolve antiunion discrimination complaints, and COTRAF reported that it could take four to five years for labor disputes to be resolved through the civil courts. According to several trade unions, employers in small companies frequently used transfers, demotions, and dismissals to intimidate union members.
b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The law prohibits most forms of forced or compulsory labor, and the government generally enforced the law. In 2012 the government greatly strengthened antitrafficking provisions of law. Government efforts to prevent and eliminate forced labor focused on trafficking in persons and child labor (see section 7.c.). Statistics on the number of victims removed from forced labor were not available.
c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment
The minimum age for full-time employment is 16. The law prohibits children younger than age 18 from participating in hazardous work, defined as night work (between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m.); the worst forms of child labor as defined under International Labor Organization Convention 182; or any work deemed difficult, unsanitary, or dangerous by the Ministry of Public Service and Labor. Prohibited sectors include work in industrial institutions, domestic service, mining and quarrying, construction, brick making, or applying fertilizers and pesticides. The law prohibits forced or compulsory labor by children; children in military service, prostitution, or pornography; and child trafficking and slavery. Children must have a rest period of at least 12 hours between work periods. The law provides six months to 20 years’ incarceration and fines of 500,000 to five million Rwandan francs ($755 to $7,550) for violations. The law applies to contractual employment but not noncontractual employment, such as subsistence family farming or casual labor in agricultural cooperatives, and thus leaves most working children unprotected. In addition to national law, some districts enforced local regulations against hazardous child labor and sanctioned employers and parents for violations. The government did not enforce the law effectively. Police, immigration officials, local government officials, and labor inspectors received training on identifying victims of trafficking.
The NCC took the lead role in designating responsible agencies and establishing actions to be taken, timelines, and other concrete measures in relation to the integrated child rights policy and various national commissions, plans, and policies related to child protection subsumed therein. In June 2013 the National Advisory Committee on Child Labor completed the National Policy on the Elimination of Child Labor and a five-year action plan to combat child labor. At the local level, 149 child labor committees monitored incidents of child labor, and each district was required to establish a steering committee to combat child labor. The government had 30 labor inspectors, one in each district. The Ministry of Public Service and Labor conducted labor inspections of firms previously known to employ children, focusing on companies operating in the mining, construction, and agriculture sectors. The RNP continued to operate a Child Protection Unit. District government officials, as part of their performance contracts, enforced child labor reduction and school attendance benchmarks.
The government continued to work with NGOs to raise awareness of the problem and to identify and send to school or vocational training children involved in child labor. The Ministry of Public Service and Labor invited private sector businesses to sign a memorandum of understanding committing them to eradicate child labor. The government’s 12-year basic education program aided in reducing the incidence of child labor, although many children who worked also attended school. The government fined those who illegally employed children or parents who sent their children to work instead of school. Teachers and local authorities continued to receive training on the rights of children and other human rights. The ministry raised public awareness of the worst forms of child labor through radio shows, television announcements, and skits. The government continued efforts to stop child prostitution through a high-profile public campaign to discourage intergenerational sex and sexual procurement.
Approximately 80 percent of child laborers worked in the agricultural sector. Child labor also persisted among household domestics, in small companies and light manufacturing, in cross-border transportation, and in the brick-making, charcoal, rock-crushing, and mining industries. Children received low wages, and abuse was common. In addition child prostitution and trafficking of children were problems. According to the Department of Labor’s Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor 2013 report, approximately 482,000 children (16.1 percent of children between ages five and 14) were engaged in child labor.
In contrast to previous years, the UNHCR reported no confirmed cases of trafficking of refugee children to Kigali, Uganda, Kenya, and elsewhere. There were reports that Rwandan girls were trafficked to Uganda to work in prostitution and as domestic workers.
d. Discrimination with Respect to Employment or Occupation
The law prohibits discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, marital status, religion, political affiliation, pregnancy, disability, socioeconomic status, and “any other type of discrimination.” The law does not specifically protect sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV-positive status.
The government sought to enforce antidiscrimination laws, but there were numerous reports of discrimination based on gender, pregnancy, disability, and political affiliation that were not challenged in court. Migrant workers enjoyed the same legal protections, wages, and working conditions as citizens.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
The national minimum wage has not been updated since 1974, when it was set at 100 Rwandan francs ($0.15) per day, but the Ministry of Public Service and Labor set industry-specific minimum wages in the small formal sector. For example, in 2010 the minimum wage in the tea industry ranged from 500 to 1,000 Rwandan francs ($.76 to $1.51) per day, while in the construction industry it ranged from 1,500 to 5,000 Rwandan francs ($2.26 to $7.60) a day, depending on skill level. Minimum wages provided a higher standard of living than that of the approximately 80 percent of the population relying on subsistence farming. The government, as the country’s largest employer, effectively set most other formal sector wage rates. The constitution requires equal pay for equal work.
According to the World Bank, 45 percent of the population lived below the national poverty line in 2011.
The law provides a standard workweek of 45 hours and 18 to 21 days paid annual leave in addition to official holidays. Maternity leave is set at six weeks with full salary, plus an optional six weeks at 20 percent of salary. The law provides for premium pay for overtime for some salaried employees and sets prohibitions on excessive compulsory overtime, but these provisions were often disregarded and rarely enforced. The law provides employers with the right to determine daily rest periods. Most employees received a one-hour lunch break.
The law regulates hours of work and occupational health and safety standards in the formal wage sector. Ministerial orders determine the modalities for establishing and operating occupational health and safety committees and the conditions for occupational health and safety set forth in the country’s comprehensive occupational health and safety standards regulations, although the committees have not been established. The same labor standards applied to migrant and foreign workers as to citizens. There were no effective labor standards for the informal sector, which accounted for 89 percent of all establishments according to the 2011 Establishment Census.
The ministry had 30 labor inspectors, one in each district, who reported to district mayors. Inspectors did not enforce labor standards effectively, particularly in urban areas. While penalties helped to deter the worst forms of child labor, as indicated by the continuing decrease in child labor, the high level of media attention to arrests for the worst forms of child labor, and action by some key industries to eliminate child labor, the government did not enforce the law consistently. With regard to adult labor, the many violations reported to labor unions compared to the relatively few actions taken by the government and employers to remedy substandard working conditions suggested penalties were insufficient to deter violations.
Some workers accepted less than the minimum wage. Families regularly supplemented their incomes by working in small businesses or subsistence agriculture. Most workers in the formal sector worked six days per week. Violations of wage, overtime, and occupational health and safety standards were common in both the formal and informal sectors. Local media highlighted the common problem of employers not registering employees for social security or occupational health insurance and not paying into those benefit systems as required by law. Workers in the subcontractor and business process outsourcing sectors were especially vulnerable to hazardous or exploitative working conditions. Statistics on workplace fatalities and accidents were not available, but ministry officials singled out mining as a sector with significant problems in implementing occupational health and safety standards. There were no major industrial accidents during the year.
While workers do not have the right to remove themselves from situations that endangered their health or safety without jeopardizing their jobs, they were generally permitted to do so, although workers in some sectors, such as mining, were less protected in this regard. The Ministry of Public Safety and Labor sought to promote the health and safety of workers by maintaining a list of dangerous professions subject to heightened safety scrutiny. There were no reports of individuals losing their employment due to removing themselves from dangerous situations.
(Brussels) – Human rights abuses in their home countries are the driving force behind the surge in boat migration in the Mediterranean to reach Europe, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. EU leaders should put human rights at the heart of its response. EU leaders will meet on June 25 and 26, 2015, to discuss European Commission proposals toward a “European Migration Agenda.”
The 33-page report, “The Mediterranean Migration Crisis: Why People Flee, What the EU Should Do,” documents the human rights abuses driving people to make the dangerous sea crossing and the shortcomings of EU migration and asylum policies. The report is based on over 150 interviews in May with recently-arrived migrants and asylum seekers in Italy – Lampedusa, Catania, and Milan – andGreece – the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros, and Kos. The conclusions are also based on extensive Human Rights Watch research in Syria,Eritrea, Afghanistan, and Somalia – the home countries of many of those arriving by sea.
“The majority of those crossing the Mediterranean are taking terrible risks because they have to, not because they want to,” said Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “Saving lives and increasing safe pathways into Europe should be the EU’s priorities, while ensuring that all cooperation with countries of origin and transit countries respects international human rights standards.”
Interactive Map (Click to Launch): Migration journeys to the European Union
Over 100,000 migrants and asylum seekers have crossed the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2015. According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, over 60 percent of those taking the journey come from Syria, Somalia, and Afghanistan, countries torn apart by war and generalized political violence, or from Eritrea, which is ruled by a highly repressive government. Asylum seekers, including children, from these four countries who arrived in Italy and Greece in May described to Human Rights Watch the indiscriminate fighting, threats from insurgent groups such as the Taliban, Al-Shabaab, and ISIS, forced conscription and recruitment by armed groups, attacks on schools, and other abuses that forced them to flee.
Mubarek, from Parwan, in northern Afghanistan, left the country with his wife and three young sons in March to escape the Taliban. “Every day the Taliban would take people and children for suicide bombings,” he said. “I was worried about my children, my sons, that they would be forced to become suicide bombers.”
While many of those coming from other countries – Nigeria, The Gambia, Senegal, Mali – want to improve their economic opportunities or to live in more open and safe societies, some among them may be fleeing persecution or other serious harm. Some migrants who have lived in Libya since before the current hostilities broke out in May 2014, are fleeing insecurity and violence there.
Every year thousands of unaccompanied children make the journey across the Mediterranean without parents or other caregivers. In 2014, over 10,500 children traveled alone to Italy by sea. In Greece, over 1,100 unaccompanied children were registered in 2014.
The International Organization for Migration has identified the Mediterranean as the world’s deadliest migration route. The EU has recently taken some positive steps to save lives in the Mediterranean, but it remains focused primarily on ways to limit arrivals to European shores. But the severe human rights situations that people are fleeing shows why the EU’s priorities need to change, Human Rights Watch said.
The EU should maintain robust search and rescue operations as long as they are necessary, Human Rights Watch said. It should significantly increase the number of people resettled in the EU under UNHCR programs from the 20,000 proposed by the European Commission. EU countries should endorse and fully carry out the commission’s proposal to relocate 40,000 asylum seekers within the EU to share responsibility for asylum seekers more equitably across the EU.
UNCHR has asked the international community to resettle at least 130,000 Syrian refugees. The EU has pledged to resettle 45,000 but can respond more generously to the Syrian crisis as well as to other protracted refugee crises, Human Rights Watch said.
The deaths of over 1,000 migrants at sea within a week in April spurred positive, if belated, EU action to step up search and rescue efforts in the central Mediterranean. The EU should sustain this collective effort in the long term to minimize deaths at sea, and ensure that those rescued are brought to safe EU ports where those seeking asylum will have the opportunity for fair consideration of their claims, Human Rights Watch said.
In May the European Commission issued proposals for a “European Agenda on Migration.” The agenda includes some positive steps that if implemented fully – and more generously – could help save lives, ensure safer access to international protection in the EU, and correct distortions in the EU’s asylum system that affect the rights of asylum seekers, Human Rights Watch said. However, most of the commission’s agenda involves reinforcing measures to limit arrivals to the EU.
EU respect for international law and human rights norms should inform and shape its current and future deliberations on migration and asylum policies as well as its approach to boat migration in the Mediterranean, Human Rights Watch said. The right to life and protection against refoulement – the return to persecution, torture, or ill-treatment – are cornerstone rights of international human rights architecture. In addition to these rights, the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees the rights to liberty and security, the right to an effective remedy, and the right to privacy and family life. Enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the right to leave any country, including one’s own, is key to ensuring the right to seek asylum. This is also guaranteed in the EU’s binding Charter of Fundamental Rights.
In advance of the EU Council on June 25-26, Human Rights Watch said, EU leaders should support farther-reaching proposals to increase safe and legal channels into the EU. These measures should include significantly expanding resettlement for refugees identified by the UNHCR, facilitated family reunification to enable people already in the EU to bring family members there, and the increased use of humanitarian visas to enable people in need of international protection to travel lawfully to the EU to apply for asylum.
Over the long term, the EU should ensure that cooperation with sending and transit countries does not effectively trap people in abusive situations, prevent them from accessing fair asylum procedures, or lead to refoulement. And the EU should use its influence and resources more effectively to address the major drivers of migration, including systematic human rights violations, poverty, inequitable development, weak governance, and violent conflict and lawlessness.
“There are no easy solutions to the terrible abuse and hardship that force people to leave their countries or the cruelty they face on the journeys,” Sunderland said. “This is a difficult challenge for the EU but one where human rights must take center stage.”
Madamu Uzamukunda Marie Claire yaburiwe irengero ku cyumweru taliki ya 24 Mutarama 2016, ubwo yari avuye iwe i Gicumbi yerekeza ku kazi ke ku bitaro by’i Rwamagana aho akora nka Administratrice . 
GAHUNDE 