(RSF/IFEX) – On 15 March 2002, RSF expressed its great concern to the Rwandan government following the murder of a local journalist in the capital, Kigali, and called for a speedy and impartial inquiry into the incident. “This killing must on no account go unpunished,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard in letters to Rwanda’s Internal […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 15 March 2002, RSF expressed its great concern to the Rwandan government following the murder of a local journalist in the capital, Kigali, and called for a speedy and impartial inquiry into the incident. “This killing must on no account go unpunished,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard in letters to Rwanda’s Internal Security Minister Jean de Dieu Ntiruhungwa and Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo, noting that during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, about fifty journalists were murdered, and another journalist was killed in 1997.
RSF has learned that journalist Jean-Marie Hategekimana, from the government weekly “Imvaho”, was murdered on the night of 11 to 12 March in a bar in Kigali’s Gatenga quarter, along with three other individuals. The journalist was talking with the three persons, including an official from the Ibuka group of genocide survivors’ associations, when two gunmen burst into the bar and tried to rob them. They subsequently shot the journalist and his three companions. The four victims were pronounced dead on arrival in hospital.
There is no indication so far as to whether Hategekimana, who was buried on 14 March, was especially targeted or shot because he was a journalist.
