Nairobi – Free press campaign group Reporters Without Borders attacked the legal process over the death of a prominent journalist critical of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s regime as “opaque” on Friday.
John Williams Ntwali, 44, editor of The Chronicles newspaper, died on January 18 when a vehicle rammed into the motorcycle he was riding as a passenger near the capital Kigali.
The driver involved in the crash pleaded guilty and was convicted of “involuntary manslaughter”. He was ordered on February 7 to pay a fine of one million Rwandan francs, about 860 euros.
Reporters Without Borders, which goes by its French initials RSF, said in a statement that the trial was a “blitz” and “an opaque procedure that left many areas of shadow over the circumstances of his death”.
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“This judgment was made on the basis of an investigation that was never made public and which obviously only took into account the hypothesis of an accident, without exploring other avenues,” it said.
“In 2012, the journalist, who was already the subject of threats, was the victim of a similar accident which he survived.”
“Is 860 euros the price of a journalist’s murder in Rwanda?” said Sadibou Marong, director of RSF’s Africa desk.
In a tweet on January 23, government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo dismissed the allegations as “baseless insinuations”.
At the end of January, 90 human rights organisations, mainly from Africa, called on the Rwandan authorities to launch an “independent, impartial and effective inquiry” based on “international experts”.
“Ntwali”, as many called him, had been imprisoned numerous times during his career – sometimes for hours, sometimes for weeks.
He founded the Pax TV channel on YouTube, mostly broadcasting interviews in the Kinyarwanda language with dissident figures.
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Since the end of the 1994 genocide, which claimed at least 800 000 mainly Tutsi lives, Rwanda has been ruled with an iron fist by Paul Kagame.
Praised for the successes of his development policy, the president is also criticised by rights groups for his crackdown on free speech.
“Since 1996, eight professionals have been killed or are missing, and 35 have been forced into exile,” RSF said on its website, adding that the country ranked 136th out of 180 countries for press freedom.
In the past decade, independent media has dwindled and been muzzled by the government.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Twitter/@KiengeKki
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