Rwanda blamed over media

By  Richard Wanambwa & Isaac Khisa  (email the author), Saturday Monitor

Posted Friday, April 16 2010 at 00:00

Kampala
By suspending two weekly vernacular newspapers for six months, the Rwandan government is muzzling the press ahead of presidential elections, a global journalists’ organisation has said.

The New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists in a statement said Umuseso and Umuvungizi were suspended because they were critical of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front.

“The six-month suspension will ensure both independent papers are unable to cover the presidential elections,” the committee said, adding that the Media High Council that had instituted the suspension was “heavily influenced by the government.”

Poll fright?
Rwanda goes to the polls in August but the global media watchdog says the ruling party is intolerant of criticism. It points to the fact that the two weeklies were suspended at a press conference attended by state-aligned media.

“The council accused Umuseso of insulting the head of state, inciting the police and army to insubordination, and creating fear among the public,” the committee’s Africa programme coordinator, Mr Tom Rhodes, said on Wednesday, “[but the council] did not link these accusations to any particular article in Umuseso and did not specify the reasons for the suspension of Umuvugizi.”

President Paul Kagame has dismissed talk of trouble brewing in Kigali, instead saying he will deal with people spreading malicious propaganda.

Presiding over the swearing-in ceremony of newly-appointed military officials and a defence minister on Tuesday, he dismissed talk that some of the officers who were being sworn in were under detention.