The High Media Council in Rwanda has asked the information ministry to close independent weekly Umuseso for three months for likening the current government to the one that was in power in the run-up to the 1994 genocide.
The offending article, published in Umuseso’s July 20-27 issue, compared President Paul Kagame’s government to that of Juvénal Habyarimana, who was president immediately prior to the genocide. Its headline was: “Impanga? Kagame arusha Habyarimana ikoranabuhanga mu gitugu gusa” (Twins? Kagame is like Habyarimana – it’s the same dictatorship, only with technology as well).
The comparison is an outrageous one in the eyes of the current government, which accused Habyarimana of planning the genocide while Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR), now the ruling party, brought it to an end.
“I am not surprised by this decision as this newspaper is President Kagame’s bugbear,” said a Congolese journalist based on the opposite bank of Lake Kivu in the Congolese city of Bukavu. “Kagame doesn’t even like hearing its name mentioned,” he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A communiqué issued by the High Media Council (HCM), which has the job of regulating the media, accused Umuseso of “insulting the president… sowing confusion in the population… spreading rumours… defamation… and excessive sensationalism.” It was signed by the council’s president, Dr Vénuste Karambizi.
Warned that the weekly was about to be suspended, Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) called the HCM two hours before the news conference at which the decision was announced and spoke to its executive secretary, Patrice Mulama, expressing its disapproval. Since then, Mulama has not been reachable.
“The already limited space for expressing opinions is shrinking away in this country without press freedom,” RSF said. “Umuseso’s temporary closure, coming after the suspension of the BBC’s Kinyarwanda-language broadcasts, will restrict Rwandan’s access to news and information even more.” It said, “Will next year’s presidential election be free and fair if all the media that are the least bit independent and critical have been suppressed or gagged?”
Information minister Louise Mushikiwabo had warned at a joint news conference with President Kagame on July 27 that Umuseso and another weekly, Umuvugizi, risked being closed because they had not “changed their behaviour since we put them in quarantine.”
Media “self-regulatory” organisations that support the government had summoned Umuseso editor Didas Gasana and Umuvugizi editor Jean-Bosco Gasasira on July 31 to admonish them about their recent coverage of an alleged sex scandal involving the Kigali state prosecutor.
