Rwanda accused of stalking, harassing and threatening exiles in US

Rwanda has been accused of being among the many worst perpetrators of “transnational repression” in the US, stalking, harassing and threatening exiles there, in response to a brand new report.

The report by the Freedom House advocacy group in Washington, names Rwanda alongside China, Russia, Iran and Egypt because the principal offenders in searching for to increase the attain of their repressive regimes into the US.

Isabel Linzer, one of the report’s authors, stated the findings increase additional questions concerning the UK authorities’s settlement with Kigali to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. The first deportation flight is due on 14 June.

“People often focus on Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, Russia, but Rwanda is one of the most prolific perpetrators of transnational repression in the world,” Linzer stated. “And it certainly has not received the same level of scrutiny as some of those other countries.

“The asylum deal between the UK and Rwanda is quite shocking given how frequently the Rwandan government has gone after Rwandans in the UK and the British government is well aware of that,” she added.

The Freedom House report, Unsafe in America: Transnational Repression in the United States, notes that assaults on exiles have taken place for the reason that chilly conflict, however provides “operations by foreign intelligence agents have significantly intensified in recent years”.

“Autocrats cast a long shadow onto America’s soil,” it says. “The governments of Iran, China, Egypt, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, and other states are increasingly and more aggressively disregarding US laws to threaten, harass, surveil, stalk, and even plot to physically harm people across the country.”

One of these focused was Paul Rusesabagina, the previous Kigali resort supervisor whose efforts to avoid wasting individuals in the 1994 genocide is informed the movie Hotel Rwanda.

Rusesabagina, a US everlasting resident and distinguished dissident, was kidnapped whereas travelling in the Middle East in August 2020, tricked into boarding a personal airplane that took him to Rwanda, the place he was sentenced to 25 years in jail. Last month the US state division formally declared him to be “wrongfully detained”.

Rusesabagina’s daughter, Carine, and different Rwandan dissidents have been discovered to have been the targets of surveillance utilizing Pegasus spy ware made by the Israel safety agency NSO Group.

The Rwandan authorities has denied utilizing the spy ware however didn’t reply to a request to touch upon the Freedom House report.

Rwandan opposition figures in the US communicate of fixed surveillance, harassment and threats.

“You come to understand that it is part of your life,” stated Theogene Rudasingwa, a former chief of workers to President Paul Kagame who was as soon as Rwanda’s ambassador to the US, and is now a staunch critic of Kagame’s rule. “My wife is constantly in fear. My children are constantly in fear, especially for me. Every time I step out of the house, they are on edge. I have determined that I can’t be paralysed and live in fear 24/7, but the feeling of being a hunted person is around me 24/7,” Rudasingwa informed the Guardian.

Three months in the past he stated he got here out of his native financial institution to be informed by a passerby that that they had seen somebody go below his automotive. Rudasingwa referred to as the police who carried out a three-hour search however discovered nothing, presumably as a result of the intruder had been disturbed.

Rudasingwa was the goal of an assassination plot in Belgium in 2015, which failed when he postpone a deliberate journey there. Following the homicide of his fellow opposition chief, former Rwandan intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya, in South Africa in 2013 – a killing broadly believed to have been ordered in Kigali – the state division suggested Rudasingwa to take additional precautions.

“They told me that they had reached out to Kigali to warn them not to try to do that kind of thing here in the United States,” he informed the Guardian.

In March this yr, the FBI launched a web site on transnational repression giving recommendation on find out how to report incidents, half of a broad marketing campaign by the administration to confront the rising menace.

“Transnational repression is used not only to harm or threaten individual dissidents, journalists, activists, and diaspora members, but to silence entire communities,” a spokesperson for the National Security Council stated.

“Our intention is to use the full suite of tools and resources at our disposal to protect and build support for individuals and communities who are being targeted, and to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions.”

However, Claude Gatebuke, one other Rwandan activist who has obtained repeated nameless threats, stated many in the diaspora don’t report harassment as a result of of the shut diplomatic ties between Washington and Kigali.

“Part of the reason why people won’t speak up is because they know the government of Rwanda has a very tight relationship with the US government, and sharing information, they think they’re telling on themselves,” Gatebuke informed the Freedom House authors.

Senior members of Congress have additionally voiced unease at Washington’s embrace of Kagame. After the top of US Africa Command, Gen Stephen Townsend, posted footage of him posing alongside the Rwandan president, the highest Republican on the Senate international relations committee, James Risch, warned that the bilateral relationship “faces serious complications”.

“Portraying the opposite is counterproductive and undermines [state department] messages on other top diplomatic concerns,” Risch wrote on Twitter.

“I’m always sensitive to the fact that there is that level of interaction at the intelligence level, at the level of the FBI, of senior officials always going to Kigali like it’s their Mecca,” Rudasingwa stated. “How could I possibly say I’m safe, sharing sensitive information with them? So sometimes you just keep it to yourself.

“Nobody ever calls Kagame out. Nobody seeks accountability from him,” he added. “They give these occasional slaps on the wrist, but then you see the United Kingdom is sending refugees there. So where would you get the guts to call him out when he is doing you a favour?”

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