Kigali, 13 February 2012

Today, the opposition leader and chair of FDU-INKINGI Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza was taken to the high court. The hearing will resume on 12 March 2012 after the defense counsel peruses the new indictment on acts of terrorism submitted just end of last week by the national public prosecution authority on grounds of evidential material from the Netherlands. The new indictment is in Kinyarwanda and needs to be translated into languages understood by her defense team.

The prosecutor has introduced a controversial evidence from a witness who allegedly has collaborated with the key defendant in contacts with people based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But the same time, the very witness has told a Dutch investigating team that the government of Rwanda tried to kill her husband inSouth Africa after he declined a spy contract for their external intelligence network.

Last week on 07 February 2012, a Dutch envoy, adviser on Rwandan policy, held a business meeting with the FDU-INKINGI interim executive committee in Kigali. The delegation was briefed on the political trials against Ms. Victoire Ingabire and other key opposition leaders; the shortcomings of the Rwandan judicial system; interferences of governmental officials and the lack of political space in Rwanda.

FDU-INKINGI

Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice President

On Friday 06 January 2012, some members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Security, accepted a few live questions from prisoners inside the Kigali Central Prison. The political prisoner Ms. Victoire Ingabire, FDU-INKINGI Chair, engaged the Senators on the plight of political prisoners in Rwanda and urged them to promote laws granting more freedoms and democracy in the country before they finish their term in the Senate. “What do you think about the issue of political prisoners here? My visitation right has been restricted.

I don’t have rights to attend church service or pray with others and was told that no change is to be seen until Easter. You have been appointed for 8 years. Rwandans expect your mandate to abolish vague laws that generate political prisoners. People need more freedoms and democracy in this country. Otherwise, there will be no real reconciliation, no sustainable development and no political stability … ”, she stated, spreading a wave of applause through the crowd of prisoners.