Tag: Victoire Ingabire

Victoire Ingabire left Rwanda almost two years ago in January 2010 to return to her native Rwanda in hopes of challenging Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the country’s 2010 presidential election. Her party was not allowed to register, she was not allowed to run, and she has spent the last year not as the president of Rwanda, but as a prisoner in Kigali’s 1930 maximum security prison.

Supporters of Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire gathered to celebrate her 43rd birthday. Ingabire has been in jail for over a year and her trial continues with almost no attention from the international press, even though she’s charged with challenging the received history of the Rwanda Genocide.

We believe it is fundamentally inadvisable to collaborate with the current Rwandan government, given its grave human rights violations record and overt curtailment of political freedoms in Rwanda. If you move forward, we request that CMU promote democratic space and respect for human rights in the region.

Imagine if you were on trial for crimes punishable with up to 30 years in prison. Imagine if the judges then told your lawyers that they have no right to cross-examine the state’s so-called witnesses. This is what happened last week in the capital city of Kigali, Rwanda, where opposition leader Mrs. Victoire Ingabire is on trial.

On Aug. 29, Barack Obama’s State Department filed a request for immunity for Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the civil lawsuit Habyarimana vs. Kagame, which alleges Kagame’s guilt in the Rwanda Genocide and Congo wars and demands damages for the widows of assassinated Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira.

On Dec. 15, a French judge filed preliminary charges against six people close to Rwandan President Paul Kagame for the 1994 assassination of the Rwandan and Burundian presidents that triggered the Rwanda Genocide. When will Obama take heed of these new French charges? How much longer will the U.S. back the regime sued on two continents and in three countries?

This month the U.S. and the U.N. Security Council must choose: Will they hold accountable major perpetrators of continued atrocities in the Congo or collaborate with them to put the blame on a few guilty but minor scapegoats and some innocent people who are guilty only of challenging the major offenders?

Victoire Ingabire, widely regarded as Rwanda's opposition leader, was arrested on Oct. 14, 2010, after a week long police siege on her home. She is charged with the formation of a terrorist organization with the aim to disrupt the territorial security of Rwanda.

The Dutch do not understand why their government is not doing anything. What I ask is that everyone come to a rally this Saturday, Oct. 23, at 11:30 a.m., to the central train station of Den Haag, opposite the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

No one knows for sure whether Professor Mwaikusa was assassinated by Rwandan Patriotic Front operatives, but we do know that the RPF target lawyers who defend people whom they have identified as their enemies. Now the lawyers at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda have legitimate reason to be fearful of being in Africa.

On June 24, 2010, U.S. agents in Manchester, New Hampshire, arrested Rwandan genocide survivor Beatrice Munyenyezi, a Hutu and a U.S. citizen since 2004, who is charged with genocide and with rape as a war and genocide crime. Meanwhile, a federal prosecutor for the case is known for misconduct, falsification of evidence and perjury. Is it a crime to have a Facebook profile? Is it a crime to use a computer?

Presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire reported that her party’s treasurer, Alice Muhirwa, mother of two, fainted in a Rwandan courtroom due to untreated torture wounds inflicted by the Rwandan police. The FDU reported that Rwandan police refused to take Ms. Muhirwa to a hospital to be treated for bleeding caused by boot kicks to the stomach.

"Peter Erlinder is in need of all assistance the international organization for human rights lawyers can muster. He is in the hands of a murderous, brutal regime," declares six-term Congress member and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney. Professor Erlinder was jailed after traveling to Rwanda to defend Victoire Ingabire, leading candidate challenging incumbent President Paul Kagame.

Rosen glosses over the damning case against Kagame – in the same way he ignores most Kagame critics. He fails to mention that right now Kagame’s regime is shutting down newspapers, is kidnapping the homeless and is demonizing and pronouncing Victoire Ingabire guilty. And hours ago in Rwanda, Kagame arrested eminent American law professor, Peter Erlinder.

Rwanda Chief Prosecutor Martin Ngoga warned leading opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire that she might be jailed once again if she continues speaking to the press. He also said that "some defense lawyers at the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda) have badly deviated from their professional duties and turned into activists and advocates of genocide denial.”

Rwandan President Paul Kagame took his turn on the red carpet in New York City this week and received a standing ovation for his role in “Earth Made of Glass.” While gathering up the accolades, his government is in the throes of a political crisis.

Today, 62 percent of the people packed into Rwanda’s prisons have been charged or convicted of genocide-related crimes and some of the country’s most admired leaders are being accused of the “genocide ideology” thought crime. Most prominent are Victoire Ingabire, Kagame’s strongest competitor for the presidency, and Paul Rusesabagina, the hero portrayed in the film “Hotel Rwanda,” who is charged with “Double Genocide Theory.”