INGABIRE PRISON ISOLATION CONTINUES

For 11 consecutive weeks, the Rwandan political prisoner Madame Victoire Ingabire,  Chair of FDU-Inkingi,  is still submitted to an inhumane isolation in prison that detention experts say is some kind of torture. She is denied visits from members of her political party.  Today on her 232nd day in maximum security, visitors were ordered manu militari by Nyarugenge DPC, Mr. Mutezintare, to vacate the prison premises.

As the political trial of Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza scheduled on 20 June 2011 is approaching, a constant coordinated State  propaganda is poured out again. A week before, Mr. Faustin Kagame, a new master of propaganda for President Kagame's office, published in Jeune Afrique (22-28 May 2011) in a hate paper that even if Ingabire  was not in Rwanda during the genocide, the life sentence given  in absentia to her mother should not be overshadowed”.  This shows the magnitude of  the character assassination campaign targeting her family members as well.

The National Prosecutor, Martin Ngoga, on 1st and 2nd June 2011 repeated in different media interviews that the Dutch government sent overwhelming evidence to help the case against the opposition leader. Reliable sources confirm that the Dutch government has not yet sent any document to Rwanda. In this particular case, a Supreme Court ruling is a must and yet the government will need to make a political decision after consulting different departments and the parliament where several members are concerned with proofs of the political motivation of this case and several governmental interferences.

Considering the amount of interferences and the never ending introduction of new elements, the defence counsel has explained in writing the impossibility to start this long and complicated trial before September 2011 but under the governmental pressure the High Court seems to rush the case. Will they proceed with a condemnation without evidential trial and cross examination?
The only way out of this politically motivated judicial parody is a political settlement.

FDU-Inkingi
Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice President.