Rwanda journalists jailed for genocide denial launch supreme court appeal
Two Rwandan journalists imprisoned for insulting President Paul Kagame and denying genocide will appear before the country's supreme court on Monday to argue for their freedom. The fates of Agnès Uwimana and Saïdati Mukakibibi, who are supported by an international team of lawyers and British human rights groups, have become test cases for free speech in the central African state. The ban on denial of the country's 1994 genocide, which claimed as many as 800,000 lives, is being exploited as a legal weapon to silence political opponents, it is alleged. Rwanda insists the law is no different from those in Europe outlawing denial of the Holocaust.
The two women will be represented at the supreme court in the capital, Kigali, by John Jones, a London barrister who specialises in war crimes trials. He has previously appeared at the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, in neighbouring Tanzania.
Rwanda, formerly a German and Belgian colony, has been a member of the Commonwealth since 2009. Concerns highlighted by human rights groups before its accession included harassment of journalists and the extent of political freedoms.
Under Rwanda's constitution, "revisionism, negationism and trivialisation of genocide are punishable by the law". Critics say the legislation is too vague and is used against those who suggest that both ethnic Hutus and Tutsis suffered equally in the genocide, contradicting the state's official version of events.
full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/29/rwanda-journalists-genocide-denial-appeal
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