Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has released a press freedom index that portrays Rwanda as one of the countries where it is bad to be a journalist. Without shame, the organization characterizes Rwanda as a country that is not making progress in regard to the media and its freedoms. It places Rwanda among the worst ten countries.

It has become a trend for RSF to continuously portray Rwanda’s government as oppressive to journalists and curtailing media freedoms. This is simply false and it speaks volumes about the ill intentions of RSF towards Rwanda. The organization, most probably based its information on events taken out of context and in many instances unrelated to press freedom in Rwanda.

The majority of Rwandan journalists, whom RSF purports to speak for and whose rights it pretends to defend, do not agree with what it has to say about press freedom in Rwanda. It is important that Rwandan journalists, who live and ply their trade in the country, speak out against this continuous campaign of demonizing Rwanda and mischaracterizing the media situation in the country.

It is a blatant abuse of the dignity of Rwandan journalists to always portray them as hapless victims of persecution, when in actual sense, they are not.  It is important that the media fraternity, work to dispel these unfortunate developments that seek to reinforce prejudices and false perceptions about Rwanda, and particularly the Rwandan media.

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