Sector leader held over Genocide denial

Théodosie Uwayezu, the Executive Secretary of Gitesi Sector in Karongi District, will today be handed to prosecution after she was held on Sunday over remarks trivializing the Genocide against the Tutsi, according to police. Her arrest came just three days after the launch of the week-long national mourning for the victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. “We are completing her file and I think by tomorrow, she will have been handed over to the Prosecution before she can be produced before court,” Assistant Commissioner of Police Celestin Twahirwa, the Police spokesperson told The New Times yesterday. Twahirwa, however, did not want to explicitly reveal what exactly Uwayezu said, the verbatim of what she said will be given to competent judicial organs, once she is produced before court. “What she said amounts to minimisation and [genocide] ideology,” he said. Meanwhile, Prof Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, the president of Ibuka, the umbrella body for Genocide survivors’ associations, told The New Times that Uwayezu told residents that commemoration of Genocide should begin on April 6. ‘‘This assertion is consistent with the views held by those trying to justify that the Genocide, which started on April 7, was sparked off by the death of former President Juvenal Habyarimana, who died a day before, on April 6.’’ According to Dusingizemungu, when people tried to correct Uwayezu, she insisted that her argument is justified by the understanding that commemoration must be based on someone’s interpretation of historical events. Dusingizemungu said even in European capitals, Genocide deniers are known to hold mock commemoration events on April 6, as a way of showing to the world that the Tutsi were killed spontaneously in vengeance for the death of Habyarimana. He added that, recently, Uwayezu made a comment which people have linked to her current case, arguing that Habyarimana was a good person and that those under him are the ones who were bad. “The Genocide was planned and Habyarimana was at the helm, we know his words and actions. Saying that he was a good person and rather the people he was leading were bad, is like showing that those who died during the Genocide against the Tutsi were bad and they deserved it,” he said. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Sector leader held over Genocide denial