Rwanda: Editor of censored Rwandan paper is assassinated

An unidentified gunman shot dead a journalist for a banned Rwandan newspaper on Thursday, according to media reports.

ean Leonard Ruganbage, an editor for the local-language Umuvugizi newspaper, was shot twice in front of his home on the outskirts of the capital Kigali on Thursday night, a police spokesperson was quoted as saying.

Umuvugizi’s editor, Jean Bosco Gasasira, was severely beaten by unknown attackers in Kigali in 2007. He has since fled into exile in Uganda.

International human rights groups, along with the United States government, have warned of an intensifying government crackdown on opposition politicians and critical media, in the run-up to presidential elections on 9 August.

The government says its is balancing free speech against a need to avoid a repeat of the incitement-driven ethnic hatred that sparked the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people were killed.

News reports said that Umuvugizi editor Gasasira has accused the government of murdering Ruganbage. “I and my deputy editor were following up an investigative story (and) he's been under intense surveillance. We're really 100 percent sure it was those people who have been following him who are responsible,” he told Reuters by phone from Kampala, Uganda.

He suggested Ruganbage’s killing was prompted by a story his newspaper published online on Thursday pointing the finger at Rwandan intelligence over a recent failed assassination attempt against an exiled intelligence head in South Africa.

The police have strongly denied involvement.

Along with a second critical newspaper, Umuvugizi was banned for six months in April for allegedly inciting opposition to the government and publishing inaccurate information.

“We are dismayed to hear of the murder of Jean Leonard Ruganbage,” said IPI Press Freedom Manager Anthony Mills. “We urge the authorities to conduct a professional, transparent investigation and to bring his killers to justice. It is vital that media freedom in Rwanda not fall victim to rising political tension ahead of the presidential elections.”

- June 26, 2010 by IPI

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Source: www.freemedia.at/regions/africa/singleview/5014/ (accessed on 28.06.10)