It worries me that members of the Lower Chamber of Parliament passed a bill on genocide ideology that only serves to give protection to those people who continue to conceal the vice.

According to article 13 of the bill, any person proved to wrongfully accuse another of promoting the ideology will serve half the punishment of the accused. This punishment involves an imprisonment of ten to twenty-five years and a fine ranging between Frw200, 000 and Frw1 million.

It also stipulates that any person found guilty of the crime of genocide ideology or commits recidivism shall be sentenced to life imprisonment.

One very disturbing issue is that, it has always been difficult to obtain satisfactory evidence to convict a person habouring the genocide ideology. The core complexity of this issue is that, since adequate evidence is hard to find, the criminal can tactfully deny the accusations and walk away scoot free.

This in turn may lead to many innocent people being victimized or ‘falsely’ accusing others of habouring the genocide ideology. The complication in smoothly finding evidence is the very reason that those accused of the crime of genocide ideologies have not been brought to face the law in the recent past.

With this kind of law, I am afraid people will continue to support the genocide ideology and the law might not achieve its intended objectives. I am not in any way against the bill, but I suggest that the controversial article be scraped because of its many loopholes.

KIMIHURURA