Rwanda: Three journalists arbitrarily arrested

ALERT - RWANDA
>
> 24 July 2002
>
> Three journalists arbitrarily arrested
>
> SOURCE: Reporters sans frontières (RSF), Paris
>
> (RSF/IFEX) - Robert Sebufirira, editor-in-chief of the privately-owned
> weekly "Umuseso", and two of the newspaper's reporters, Elly MacDowell
> Kalisa and Godfrey Munyaneza, were arrested and jailed in Kigali on 17 and
> 18 July 2002 after witnessing an incident of police brutality.
>
> "Nothing appears to justify these arrests of journalists who were simply
> doing their job," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to
> Rwandan Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo. "It seems like an excuse in
> order to once again attack the newspaper and contradicts President Paul
> Kagame's recent statements that the country is on the road to democracy,"
> Ménard added. He called for the journalists' immediate release and
demanded
> that the charges against them be dropped.
>
> Late on 17 July, the three journalists were chance witnesses to police
> officers' roughing up of a man near a bar in the Kiyovu district of
Kigali.
> Bystanders urged the journalists to denounce the police behaviour in their
> newspaper. When police reinforcements arrived, the witnesses, including
the
> two reporters, were arrested. Sebufirira was arrested and detained the
next
> day after giving a statement to police.
>
> The journalists were accused of interfering with police operations,
refusing
> to obey police orders and breaking a police walkie-talkie. The newspaper,
> which is disliked by the authorities, has decided to cease publication
until
> the journalists are released. They are due to appear in court before 26
July
> for a bail hearing. Their trial date is not yet known.
>
> On 18 May, "Umuseso"'s then-editor-in-chief, Ismael Mbonigaba, was
summoned
> by police in Kacyru and interrogated for seven hours about an article in
the
> newspaper that was considered "insulting" to President Kagame. The
newspaper
> had sarcastically commented on a speech in which the president had called
> Rwandans "idiots." Mbonigaba was released later that same day, but his
> passport was confiscated. He was interrogated again on 25 May and
> subsequently fled abroad.
>
> President Kagame is included on RSF's list of international press freedom
> predators.
>
> For further information, contact Jean-François Julliard at RSF, rue
Geoffroy
> Marie, Paris 75009, France, tel: +33 1 44 83 84 84, fax: +33 1 45 23 11
51,
> e-mail: [email protected], Internet: http://www.rsf.fr
>
> The information contained in this alert is the sole responsibility of RSF.
> In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit RSF.
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