The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the Rwandan authorities surveillance on political critics outside the country, including threatening their relatives back home, forcing them to support the government of the day.
The US-based rights group in a recent report alleges that Kigali has used various tactics, including threats, kidnaps and assassinations to silence critics or force others to turnover their support for the government.
The titled, “Join Us or Die: Rwanda’s Extraterritorial Repression”, says critics are targeted wherever they are in the world and face physical violence, enforced disappearances, surveillance, misuse of law enforcement and online trolls targeted at perceived critics.
Rwanda has denied the HRW’s allegations, with Government Spokesperson Yolande Makolo, accusing the lobby group of being consistent in an anti-Rwanda campaign. “Human Rights Watch continues to present a distorted picture of Rwanda that only exists in their imagination,” she said.
“Any balanced assessment of Rwanda’s record in advancing the rights, well-being, and dignity of Rwandans over the past 29 years would recognise remarkable, transformational progress. Rwanda will not be deterred from this work by bad-faith actors advancing a politicised agenda.”
The report is asking Rwanda’s global partners, including the UK, to rethink collaboration with Kigali.
“Rwanda’s partners should open their eyes and see Kigali’s wide-reaching effort for what it is: the consequence of three decades of impunity for the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front,” said Tirana Hassan, HRW executive director.
HRW specifically asks the UK to “rescind the agreement to transfer to Rwanda asylum seekers arriving ‘irregularly’ in the UK, in light of the real risks to their safety in Rwanda and inadequate safeguards to guarantee their international protection.”
HRW said the report was gathered from interviews of 150 people across the globe, who discussed Rwanda’s silencing tactics against Rwandans abroad.
It says abuses by Rwandan agents was observed in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as within Rwanda targeting relatives of dissidents.
HRW also says it had documented more than a dozen killings, kidnappings, enforced disappearances and physical attacks on dissidents since 2017.
Rwandan intelligence agents, Kigali has also used its diplomatic missions abroad, diaspora association and inter-governmental cooperation including use of Interpol red notices and extradition requests to get hold of critics, HRW alleges.
One such incident involved Hotel Rwanda “hero” Paul Rusesabagina, who thought his flight was heading to Bujumbura but landed in Kigali in August 2020, the report says.
Since Rwanda signed the asylum transfer deal with the UK to host the immigrants arriving irregularly on its shores, the deal has been subjected to legal challenges, stopping its implementation at least until the UK Supreme Court decides its validity.
