Rwanda’s independent media is facing increasing intimidation in the run-up to parliamentary elections scheduled for later this year.
On Friday, three editors of private Kinyarwanda-language newspapers were suddenly expelled from the afternoon session of a World Press Freedom Day event at the Serena Hotel in the capital, Kigali, despite attending the media stakeholders’ forum since the morning as registered participants, according to local journalists and news reports.
Jean Grober Burasa of Rushyashya, Jean Bosco Gasasira of Umuvugizi, and Charles Kabonero of Umuseso, were dismissed without explanation by Rwandan Information Ministry officials, the organizers of the event, as they returned from a lunch break, Gasasira told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The journalists, who edit newspapers known for their critical coverage of the government, expected to participate in afternoon discussions about press freedom issues in Rwanda, according to Gasasira.
Speaking to CPJ by telephone on Friday, Rwandan Information Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said the event was open to all media stakeholders, excluding four private newspapers: Umuseso, Umuco, Rushyashya and Umuvugizi, which were not sent invitations.
“For a long time, these are papers that publish biased articles, articles not based on facts, and even articles of a destructive nature,” she told CPJ. “I decided not to invite them because I thought it was an opportune time to send a message to these four papers that they must correct their behavior,” she said. She declared that she would urge other officials to bar the papers from future government functions. “They are newspapers that have no education value to Rwandans, no entertainment value, nothing except publishing harmful lies,” she told the pro-government Focus newspaper this week.
In a letter to Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said, "We are greatly concerned by the summary removal of our colleagues in reprisal for their journalism. This is a flagrant violation of their rights to access and inquire on all events of public life as guaranteed by Article 65 of Rwanda’s 2002 press law.
"We are also concerned that Mushikiwabo’s public comments appear to contradict not only the government’s official policy of promoting media development and freedom, but also the mandate of the Information Ministry to facilitate the implementation of those policies. While her comments echoed long-standing complaints of the government toward Rwanda’s embattled independent press, national press laws grant exclusive disciplinary authority on journalism ethics violations to the High Council of the Press, the official media regulator.
"The challenges facing the Rwandan media, including media development and journalism training, can only be overcome with the government’s full engagement with all stakeholders, in a process of public consultation, not confrontation."
On April 11, the government expelled from the country journalist Robert Mukombozi, a correspondent of neighbouring Uganda’s leading daily Monitor, in connection with his journalism. Minister Mushikiwabo told CPJ last month Mukombozi lacked proper journalism accreditation as well as “objectivity” in his articles.
Two days later, during a genocide remembrance speech at the US Embassy in Kigali, Théodore Simburudari, the president of prominent genocide survivor organisation IBUKA, accused the British Broadcasting Corporation and US-government funded Voice of America, both of which broadcast into Rwanda, of “promoting genocide ideology,” according to local journalists and news reports.
The pro-government daily New Times quoted Simburudari as saying that the stations had been “persistently hosting well-known revisionists in their studios,” thereby “boosting the genocide ideology.” Mushikiwabo later told CPJ that she was in “total agreement” with Simburudari’s comments. The accusations targeted popular Kinyarwanda programmes in the Rwandan diaspora, including the BBC’s weekly call-in programme “Imvo N’Imvano.” Several journalists told CPJ that their professionalism and integrity had been questioned by the government and its supporters for seeking comments from both officials and exiled opposition critics.
“We are not the enemies of the government, we are partners in the development of the country,” senior journalist Marcel Museminari told CPJ. “We want to live in a country where everyone’s rights are respected.” Museminari is a member of the Rwanda Ethics Commission, an independent self-regulatory media institution.
