A US lawyer helping defend a Rwandan presidential hopeful against charges that include promoting a genocidal ideology was arrested on Friday and charged with genocide denial, police said.
The US National Lawyers Guild demanded Peter Erlinder’s immediate release and said the government was trying to hamstring the legal defense of Victoire Ingabire, an opposition leader running against Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Aug. 9 elections.
Kagame has been lauded abroad for social and economic reforms and is expected to win another seven-year term, but human rights groups say his administration has an ironclad hold on power and quashes opposing views.
“There can be no justice for anyone if the state can silence lawyers for defendants whom it dislikes and a government that seeks to prevent lawyers from being vigorous advocates for their clients cannot be trusted,” said David Gespass, the president of the US National Lawyers Guild.
Rwanda’s 1994 genocide claimed the lives of more than 500,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The massacres ended when mostly Tutsi rebels led by Kagame defeated the mostly Hutu extremist perpetrators.
Ingabire, a Hutu, returned to Rwanda in January to contest elections after 16 years of living abroad. She says she returned to Rwanda because the country needs an open discussion to promote reconciliation.
She immediately visited a memorial to Tutsis killed in the 1994 genocide and asked why Hutus who also died weren’t remembered. She was arrested and freed on bail, but her passport was seized and she cannot leave Kigali. If convicted, Ingabire, 41, could be sentenced to more than two decades in prison.
Her case has become a test of where Rwanda stands in its effort to move past the genocide — and how much freedom the government will allow.
Erlinder is the president of an association of defense lawyers at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda that is trying the masterminds of the 1994 genocide. He is also a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St Paul, Minnesota.
He came to Rwanda four days ago and “has been publicly saying that there was no genocide in Rwanda,” police spokesman Eric Kayiranga said.
“It has nothing to do with diplomacy, it is totally a criminal case,” Kayiranga said when asked whether the arrest could cause a diplomatic spat with the US.
US Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said her office is working with the US embassy in Rwanda to make sure that Erlinder “is treated well and that the legal process works quickly and fairly so he can come home.”
Klobuchar said on Friday she has spoken to US Ambassador to Rwanda Stuart Symington, a longtime friend, and he told her that embassy officials met with Erlinder soon after his arrest and reported that he is in good health.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
RSS