On 27 April, The Guardian, a UK paper, carried a sensational article by Sally Hayden titled, “Rwanda Police Chief accused of sexual assault of child refugee at UN Centre.” The article appeared a day before the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) released its findings on accusations about a matter alleged to have taken place on 13 April 2020. One wonders why The Guardian would be in a rush to publish a sensational article when it could have waited for the findings of the investigations in order to publish a more credible story about the incident. Hayden also went to Twitter to promote her article, “Latest: In Rwanda, an allegation that a policeman tried to rape an underage boy has rocked the EU-funded scheme for refugees evacuated from Libya. Evacuees are worried there will be no proper investigation or justice,” she tweeted on the day her article was published. A response from Yolande Makolo, the Communications Advisor in the Presidency, was immediate; “This is nonsense Sally. Just stop with the refugee porn. It may boost your career but it doesn’t help these young people. False reports can actually harm their chances of resettlement. Here’s what actually happened at the Gashora Transit Centre,” she said, attaching a link to the report. Ms Makolo is right to call it refugee porn as it was completely incomprehensible as to why The Guardian would be so pressed to publish such a false story. RIB needed exactly two weeks to conduct thorough investigations and release the results to the public. By any standards, it can’t be said that RIB took too long to release its findings in the case. On the contrary, two weeks can be said to be highly expeditious for concluding investigations in a serious case of alleged rape of a minor. Clearly, The Guardian and the story’s author, Sally Hayden, didn’t have the interest of the minor in mind when they published it. Indeed, if they were interested in protecting the minor the best way to do so would have been to wait for the results of the investigation in order to reveal the full facts of the case to the world. Instead, they chose to peddle totally unverified and ultimately unfounded rumors. Ms Hayden knew that her story lacked any facts and she knew that an investigation report would reveal the fictious nature of the allegations. Here are the facts from part of the report that was published on the website of the ministry in charge of refugees, MINEMA: “The medical report determined that no physical assault took place, and the testimonies of all eye witnesses (including the two adult companions of the complainant) indicate that no sexual abuse took place. At no time was the complainant separated from his companions during the period in question,” the report reads. “Investigation further determined that five adult refugees are responsible for pressuring the minor refugee to make the false report, which they then transmitted to media contacts in a bid to accelerate their resettlement. Given that context, the minor refugee will not face charges for filing a false police report.” Such facts should have given pause to any professional journalist intent on writing objectively about an issue. A screaming title of “police chief” would make anyone believe that the head of police was the one under suspicion, which altogether points to a deliberate intent to smear a country and its institutions. As usual, the aim is to paint a country as place inhabited by savages prepared to commit despicable things; this is a function of a racist hangover that some Western media gatekeepers are all to ready to act on to push all kinds of prejudicial reporting on African countries without subjecting such reporting to the same editorial standards as they would coverage on their own societies. Hayden has the audacity to peddle lies against a country that received refugees when her own country looked on callously as immigrants drowned in their thousands in their desperation to get to Europe where they were unwanted. Do readers of The Guardian lack any influence over its publishers and editors to not be fed with porn or do they have no problem with it? As for Ms Hayden, it is clear The Guardian and its readers are ill-served by her fictitious refugee porn in lieu of factual reporting.
