Kigali, 03 September 2012- Today, despite an impressive deployment of heavily armed anti-protest units, in and outside the Supreme Court, near 200 people observed as the incarcerated opposition leader Madame Victoire Ingabire made a new appearance in front of the Supreme Court to hear the status of the filed constitutional review on contentious genocide ideology laws. She has already spent near 2 years in maximum security prison on politically motivated charges concocted by the Paul Kagame’s regime to stifle any dissenting voices. The supreme court verdict is due on 05 October 2012. Ingabire is expecting this Friday 07 September another High court verdict on charges relating to acts of terrorism, genocide ideology and divisionism.
On 19 July 2012, the Supreme court postponed the hearing in order to allow the defendant to respond to the government submission on the lack of merit of the constitutional review of genocide laws.
The LAW N° 33 BIS/2003 REPRESSING THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND WAR CRIMES has been repealed in the ORGANIC LAW N° 01/2012/OL OF 02/05/2012 INSTITUTING THE PENAL CODE published in the Official Gazette nº Special of 14 June 2012 (art.765). The controversial aspects of the genocide ideology laws are still intact.
Rwanda seems to be again at crossroads as its current leaders supporting the M23 rebels in North Kivu are expecting tougher sanctions including international criminal charges, freezing of their foreign assets and the country’s aid disbursements. Rwandans are forced to contribute their salaries and money to the newly created “anti-donors” solidarity fund AGACIRO DEVELOPMENT FUND”, which in the eyes of the regime will allow the country to do away without international aid. This illusive concept to extort money from the population will bleed to death the already poor Rwandans instead of giving the dictatorship any meaningful financial independence it’s pretending to achieve.
FDU-Inkingi is encouraging the international community to maintain hot pressure on the regime to halt its support to the M23 rebellion in the DRC North Kivu, and to respect the sovereignty of the neighboring states.
FDU-Inkingi
Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice President.
