Statement on the Imprisonment and Conviction of Phocas Ndayizera

The Global Campaign for Rwandans' Human Rights condemns the conviction and imprisonment of Phocas Ndayizera, a freelance journalist who contributed to the BBC's Kinyarwanda and Kirundi services, and demands his immediate and unconditional release.

Arrest and detention

On 21 November 2018, the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) arrested Ndayizera in the capital, Kigali. One week later, on 28 November 2018, a RIB spokesperson presented him at a press conference in Kigali and said that the journalist had been arrested while receiving explosives, including dynamite, and that the authorities had linked him with terrorist groups, according to news reports.

Ndayizera has been detained ever since.

The charges and trial

When Ndayizera's trial began in November 2019, prosecutors accused him of planning terrorist attacks on water and power installations in Rwanda, as reported by the BBC. News reports in 2019 said he was charged alongside 12 co-defendants; by the time of his conviction, reports indicated 13 co-defendants.

Prosecutors alleged that one of Ndayizera's co-conspirators was journalist Cassien Ntamuhanga, who had escaped prison in 2017 while serving a 25-year sentence for conspiracy to murder and conspiracy against the president.

During a bail hearing in 2018, Ndayizera pleaded guilty. However, the journalist and his co-accused changed their pleas to not guilty during their trial in 2020, saying they had signed earlier confessions under torture.

During the 2020 trial, Ndayizera's attorney said his client was initially questioned about his journalism, but that case was never presented in court. A co-defendant, Eliaquam Karangwa, told the BBC that the RIB promised him freedom if he implicated Ndayizera.

The conviction

On 6 May 2021, Rwanda's High Court Chamber for International Crimes and Terrorism convicted eight defendants, including Ndayizera, of conspiring to carry out terror acts and illegal use of explosives. Ndayizera was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Ntamuhanga, tried in absentia, was sentenced to 25 years, while the other defendants were acquitted and released. All co-defendants were acquitted on the charge of plotting to attack Rwanda's government.

Our demands

A journalist has been imprisoned for nearly seven years on the strength of a confession he says was extracted under torture, while the alleged case about his journalism was never presented in court and co-defendants walked free. This is not justice. It is the persecution of a reporter for his work.

We call on the Government of Rwanda to:

• Release Phocas Ndayizera immediately and unconditionally;
• Investigate the alleged torture used to extract confessions in this case;
• End the practice of prosecuting journalists under terrorism laws to silence critical reporting.

Ndayizera's conviction is part of a broader pattern in which Rwanda's courts are used to criminalise journalism. We stand with Phocas Ndayizera, his family and his colleagues, and we will continue to campaign until he is free.