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by General Secretary and Spokesperson of PS Imberakuri Sylver Mwizerwa (He)
The PS Imberakuri party is deeply concerned and hereby openly denounces the court’s ruling in the case of its Secretary of Mobilization Mr. Jean Baptiste Icyitonderwa, in which he had appealed his six-year sentence on charges stemming from sending a letter to the prime minister expressing concerns on how student loans for students in universities and institutions of higher learning were awarded.
In reference to all prior political cases in Rwandan courts, the party PS Imberakuri had no good faith in the proceedings of this one just as it has come to be the norm. Therefore, the party PS Imberakuri wishes to make the following statements to all Rwandans, friends of Rwanda and, more specifically, to all members of PS Imberakuri:
Statement 1:
The PS Imberakuri party denounces the judgement in the case of Mr. Jean Baptiste Icyitonderwa, who as a student leader took the initiative to let the authorities know that the issues in awarding student loans for tertiary education had not been solved. Issues that were later found to be valid as the government decision to increase the number of those who should be put on a list of loan recipients instead of scholarships and financial aid.
Statement 2:
The PS Imberakuri party wants to highlight that the evidence on which the judge based the decision to make Icyitonderwa’s sentence non-appealable is a clear demonstration of the efforts put in place in order to discourage and silence all those who might want to point out what is wrong in our country’s public administration.
Statement 3:
It is the opinion of the PS Imberakuri party that the actions of Mr. Jean Baptiste Icyitonderwa should be regarded as heroic and thus worthy of praise instead of sending him to rot in jail. Indicting him with false accusations for document falsification was a pretext to deter such heroic acts. Especially when testimonies heard in court irrevocably confirm his earlier statement: that he had played no role in creating the document for which he was being accused.
Statement 4:
The PS Imberakuri party disprove the court’s ruling to uphold Icyotonderwa’s sentence of 6 years in prison, a sentence that was based only on his refusal to have a court-appointed expert witness to examine and validate the said falsified document so that it could be used in his prosecution. The handwriting in the two documents is clearly different even with an untrained eye. Any tampering with the original copies would have undoubtedly resulted in an even worse judgement but without the evidence to disprove the prosecution’s claims.
The PS Imberakuri party continues and will continue to promote the inclusion of love, justice and labor in Rwandan social fabric.
This release was issued in Kigali on June 23, 2016. The PS Imberakuri party and General Secretary and Spokesperson Sylver Mwizerwa (He), whose website is http://www.ps-imberakuri.net, can be reached at simberakuri@gmail.com.
