The Minister for Justice, Johnston Busingye, says that there is no truth in the latest Human Rights Watch report that accuses Rwanda of unlawful military detention and torture. The report, released on Tuesday and dubbed “Rwanda: Unlawful Military Detention, Torture”, alleges that Rwanda’s military has routinely unlawfully detained and tortured detainees with beatings, asphyxiations, mock executions, and electric shocks. “Rwanda is party to and observes both the Convention Against Torture and domestic laws. Human Rights Watch is recycling old, discredited, baseless allegations, for which they have no credible evidence. They will, in time, be exposed,” Busingye said in a series of tweets. Human Rights Watch claims that there are 104 cases of people who were illegally detained, and in many cases tortured or ill-treated, in Rwandan military detention centres between 2010 and 2016. “The ‘new’ report is rather a continuation of Human Rights Watch’s entrenched, vindictive agenda against Rwanda,” the Minister added. In July this year, the same organisation released another report, dubbed “All thieves must be killed”, that made allegations of extrajudicial killings in Rwanda, which the government described as an attempt by the US-based group to seek attention. Some of the people mentioned in the report are actually alive. The National Commission for Human Rights is expected to hold a news conference on Friday to expose the falsehoods in HRW reports, the commission’s public relations officer, Jean Claude Ndatuwera, told The New Times. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
