WITH news of the UK Government's proposed plans to offshore people seeking asylum in Rwanda, concerns have been raised around Rwanda’s human rights record.
While Boris Johnson has insisted that Rwanda is one of the safest countries in the world, many prominent voices have spoken out against this, including Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director.
Valdez-Symonds called Rwanda’s human rights record “dismal”, further stating that the UK Government’s proposed plans were “the very height of irresponsibility” and show “how far removed from humanity and reality the Government now is on asylum issues”.
Given this, what are some of the human rights issues currently facing Rwanda?
Refugee rights
In 2018, Rwandan police shot at least 12 refugees dead as they protested outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Karongi District, western province. “There can be no justification for shooting at unarmed protesters,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch previously stated. “The Rwandan government is trampling on the graves of the victims by refusing to acknowledge how many people were actually killed or holding those responsible to account.
Announcing that UK Govt thinks so little of human rights it will pay others to permit it to cast off its responsibilities.
— Steve Valdez-Symonds (@stevesymondsAI) April 14, 2022
And cares so little about criminal exploitation it will transfer victims of that abuse to situations where they may be more easily abused all over again. https://t.co/qzUEItujWN
Political repression
President Paul Kagame and the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front have been accused of targeting those perceived as a threat to the government. Human Rights Watch in 2020 noted that following “years of threats, intimidation, mysterious deaths and high profile, politically motivated trials, few opposition parties remain active or make public comments on government policies.” Kagame won 98% of the vote at elections in 2017, which were critiqued by various organisations as having operated in a “politically closed” space. Opposition politicians and dissidents have faced systematic harassment, arrest and detention by the ruling government’s security services.
READ MORE: Rwanda - Children not ruled out of UK Government's refugee deal
Freedom of expression
Government officials have threatened, intimidated, and prosecuted several YouTubers in the country for creating work deemed critical of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front. One YouTuber who produced content on the impact of the Covid-19 guidelines on vulnerable populations claimed authorities held him in multiple unknown locations, where he alleges he was threatened. Bloggers and other YouTube commentators have similarly alleged they were threatened or offered bribes to broadcast government propaganda.
In 2021, Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories reported over 3500 activists, journalists, and politicians inside and outwith Rwanda were potential targets of the Rwandan authorities’ use of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.
Detention and torture
In 2017, committee members of the UN Committee Against Torture raised concerns about serious violations – including torture, extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and intimidation of journalists, human rights defenders and opposition party members. Ida Sawyer has written of how Rwanda’s military has “frequently held and tortured people, beating them, asphyxiating them, using electric shocks and staging mock executions” over periods of months in “deplorable conditions”. Human Rights Watch have also accused the Rwandan government of routinely subjecting homeless children to violence and other forms of abuse at the Gikondo Transit Centre, where they were said to have been detained for months at a time in “overcrowded, unhygienic” rooms.
LGBT rights
While homosexuality is not illegal in Rwanda, LGBT people there still face ill-treatment and abuse. Indeed, some LGBT citizens of Rwanda have sought asylum in the UK due to persecution over their identity. Nizeyimana Seleman, executive director of Hope And Care Organization - a Rwandan group that works to increase educational opportunities and health services to LGBT youth and sex workers - said: “Many LGBTI people keep their sexuality and gender identity secret in an attempt to avoid rejection, discrimination and abuse, which in the long run inevitably denies them their basic human rights.”
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