Human Rights Defenders

Beloved gospel singer and genocide survivor who was imprisoned for his songs, forced into exile, and died in a Kigali police cell three days after his arrest. We believe he was killed in custody and we demand an independent investigation.

A popular lecturer turned citizen journalist, imprisoned for nothing more than his YouTube commentary on Rwandan politics, who died in the state's hands on the very day he was due to walk free after five years in prison.

Rwanda's most prominent opposition leader, arrested on her return from exile to stand for the presidency and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Released in 2018, she was re-arrested in June 2025 and remains in the hands of the state.

Independent presidential candidate barred from the 2017 ballot, arrested alongside her family, and subjected to a campaign of intimidation. Her treatment laid bare the emptiness of Rwanda's political space.

The hotel manager who saved more than 1,200 people during the 1994 genocide, later lured onto a plane, abducted to Kigali and sentenced to 25 years in prison for his opposition to the government.

Widely described as Rwanda's last independent journalist. He spent years being harassed for his reporting and died in Kigali in circumstances the authorities refuse to have independently investigated.

An opposition politician seized from exile in Burundi, forcibly returned to Rwanda and sentenced to life imprisonment after a politically motivated trial.