TranslateRwanda attacks political prisoner Victoire Ingabire's family
by Ann Garrison
KPFA Weekend News, broadcast Oct. 4, 2014
KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: Victoire Ingabire has become an icon of peace and democracy in the war ravaged Great Lakes Region of Africa. She returned to Rwanda in 2010, announcing her intention to run against sitting Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who responded by imprisoning her instead.
Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza
Now Kagame's government has persuaded Dutch immigration authorities to send Ingabire's husband, Lin Muyizere, a letter of intent to strip him of his naturalized Dutch citizenship. If they succeed, Muyizere could be deported to Rwanda and put on trial for the same thought and speech crimes that Victoire herself was convicted of.
The couple's three children, one of whom is only 12 years old, would be left without parents in The Netherlands. KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke to Belgian scholar Kris Berwouts about the case.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: Kris Berwouts, first I want to play this clip of what the Dutch lawyer for Victoire Ingabire and her husband Lin Muyizere told Radio France Internationale after saying that Victoire Ingabire's husband Lin Muyizere is only one of five Rwandans he's defending in the Netherlands.
Dutch attorney Jan Hofdijk to Radio France Internationale: "My first reaction was: 'Now they dare even to take the husband of Victoire. They start with the small guys, and now they're so brave that they even dare to jump on the spouse of Victoire.'"
KPFA: Now, this story is cause for a lot of outrage in Europe, like the Dutch lawyer's, but it's still obscure to most Americans, even though many of these challenges to the immigration and/or citizenship status of Rwandan refugees have played out in U.S. and Canadian courts, with coverage by U.S. and Canadian newspapers. Could you give it some more context?
Kris Berwouts: The Rwandan regime does not plan to open the space for freedom of expression. There are different strategies to marginalize people who disagree with the official standpoints, and one way of doing that is through the creation of legal framework, in which people are accused of crimes, such as divisionism, denial of genocide, spreading genocidal ideology.
The Rwandan regime does not plan to open the space for freedom of expression.
This means that opponents in Rwanda are neutralized, and they try to do that with people abroad too. This is what is happening now with Lin Muyizere. Essential here is that Rwanda has not the rule of law as we know it, with an independent jurisprudence, and the courts are heavily politicized, and there is absolutely no guarantee that Lin would get a fair trial in Rwanda, just as his wife Victoire never got a fair trial.
Victoire Ingabire's family at the airport before Victoire departed for Rwanda in January 2010: her husband Lin Muyizere, left, daughter Raissa Ujeneza, center left, Victoire, center right, son Remy Ndizeye Niyigena, right, and son Rizst Shima, front
KPFA: Just to demonstrate how extreme this is, you and I have both been denounced as genocide deniers in the Rwandan state press, for criticizing the government from outside the country and/or daring to suggest that Rwanda is more complex than the legally enforced version. And there's no way either of us would get a fair trial in Rwanda if we were arrested in Rwanda.
Opponents in Rwanda are neutralized, and they try to do that with people abroad too. This is what is happening now with Lin Muyizere.
Kris Berwouts: Very definitely not, and that's the case for many people. And international people, expatriate people, have the advantage to be more visible. For most Rwandans, who pass underneath the international radar, they have no protection at all.
KPFA: Right.
Lin Muyizere, husband of Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire, speaks to a Dutch journalist and audience after her 2010 arrest.
Kris Berwouts: I personally have followed several cases of Rwandan refugees in the region and in Europe, and I know how many of them have been subjected to intimidation, blackmail, physical attacks and even attempts to kill them.
KPFA: Do you think they'll succeed in having Victoire Ingabire's husband stripped of his citizenship and deported?
Kris Berwouts: That would go beyond my imagination. I think that by now the real nature of the Rwandan state and the way it is governed is clear to most European countries. I cannot imagine that a country I respect, as The Netherlands, will deliver one of its citizens to Rwanda where we all know that his rights will be violated.
KPFA: But the family lawyer says that's already happened to many less visible Rwandan refugees in the Netherlands.
Kris Berwouts: Well, that's why it's very important to use Lin Muyizere's visibility to mobilize and to try to change this.
KPFA: And that was Belgian scholar Kris Berwouts. For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.
Oakland writer Ann Garrison contributes to the San Francisco Bay View, Counterpunch, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Agenda Report and Black Star News and produces radio news and features for Pacifica's WBAI-NYC, KPFA-Berkeley and her own YouTube Channel. She can be reached at anniegarrison@gmail.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison's independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website, anngarrison.com.
