Pro-Kabuye protests reach Denmark

Rwandans living in Denmark took to the streets yesterday protesting the arrest of Rose Kabuye over Bruguière’s controversial report.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Rwandans living in Denmark took to the streets yesterday protesting the arrest of Rose Kabuye over Bruguière’s controversial report.

The protesters matched in the capital Copenhagen and camped at both the German and French embassies waving placards denouncing circumstances in which the head of the Rwanda’s State Protocol was arrested and deploring ‘judicial bullying’ by French justice.

"Why is Germany fighting French dirty games? The arrest of Mrs. Rose Kabuye violates Rwandan sovereignty,” read some of the placards.

Kabuye was arrested at Frankfurt airport and detained in Germany for eleven days while she was in the country to prepare President Kagame’s visit.

She was extradited to France yesterday where she will answer to allegations of having had a role in the downing of President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane.

A representative of the Rwandan community in Denmark, Thomas Ntagozera, said that demonstrators handed in a letter to German embassy officials in which they pleaded Kabuye’s innocence and denounced ‘violation of the Rwanda’s sovereignty’.

"Our message is clear. Rose Kabuye is our hero having been among the people who stopped the genocide,” Ntagozera said in a telephone interview with The New Times

Protests of the Rwandan community in Denmark were joined by Burundians among other communities in Copenhagen.

"Residents of the city are curious about why a European country should detain a Rwandan national,” Ntagozera said.

Kabuye was arrested in Germany twelve days ago over a contentious report of a French Judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière. She was indicted in 2006 together with nine other top Rwandan officials, including President Paul Kagame.

Several demonstrations have been taking place across Rwanda and other parts of the world following the arrest. The French judge’s report is believed to be doctored by France to cover up its role in the 1994 genocide against Tutsis.

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