Summary
“They threw me in the water and beat me. When you’re wet, you feel the pain from the sticks even more… the deputy director had a stick and an electric cable… he’s the one who hit me,” a former prisoner of Rubavu prison told Human Rights Watch in July 2024. The prison’s deputy director he refers to was acquitted of murder, torture, and assault after a landmark trial of prison officials and prisoners that concluded earlier the same year.
The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), in power since the 1994 genocide, has long presided over the torture and ill-treatment of detainees, whether held in official or unofficial detention facilities across the country. On April 5, 2024, the Rubavu High Court, in the country’s Western Province, convicted Innocent Kayumba, a former director of Rubavu and Nyarugenge prisons, of the assault and murder of a detainee at Rubavu prison in 2019, and handed him a 15-year sentence and 5 million Rwanda Francs fine (US$ 3,675). Two other Rwanda Correctional Service (RCS) officers and seven prisoners, who were accused of acting under instruction, were convicted of beating and killing prisoners. Three other RCS officials, including former Rubavu prison Director Ephrem Gahungu and Deputy Director Augustin Uwayezu, were acquitted. Human Rights Watch research indicates that serious human rights abuses, including torture, are pervasive in many of Rwanda’s detention facilities and as far as Human Rights Watch is aware, Kayumba is the only senior prison official who has been held criminally accountable for abuse in detention in Rwanda.
Kayumba’s case, as this report shows, underscores serious failings not only in Rwanda’s correctional services, but in the judiciary and in the national human rights institution. These institutions have failed to investigate or address repeated and credible allegations of torture made by detainees or former detainees since at least 2017.
Based on research conducted through trial monitoring and interviews with former detainees between 2019 and 2024, this report documents the torture and other ill-treatment in custody of detainees, whether in prisons or unofficial detention facilities. Some of the abuses were perpetrated by other detainees, who said during trial that they were forced to participate.
Several accused opposition members and others have told judges during the course of their trials that alleged confessions taken during interrogations at an unofficial detention facility known as Kwa Gacinya—a house in the Gikondo neighborhood of Kigali—were obtained through torture. Judges rarely, if ever, ordered investigations into these allegations of torture.
While the trial of Kayumba and others is a significant step toward breaking the near total impunity for torture in Rwanda, it only delivered partial justice. For example, officials were convicted of assault and murder, but acquitted of torture, which under Rwandan law carries the heavier penalty of a minimum of 20 years up to life imprisonment for public officials who commit torture in the course of their official duties. Moreover, several senior prison officials were acquitted altogether by the panel of judges despite the apparently damning evidence against them, according to Human Rights Watch interviews with former detainees. The prisoners ordered to beat fellow detainees were given sentences going up to 25 years of imprisonment, while the officials were given up to 15 years imprisonment, although they were responsible for preventing abuse and safeguarding the wellbeing of detainees.
The transfer of Kayumba from Rubavu to Nyarugenge in 2019 allowed him to put in place the abusive, and sometimes fatal, practices in that facility, as he had in the former, while there was also a complete failure to hold accountable any other senior prison official involved in these abuses. The judiciary and the Rwandan Correctional Service’s failure to order investigations into allegations of torture brought to the court by defendants compounded the impunity.
The National Commission for Human Rights of Rwanda (NCHR), which functions as the National Preventive Mechanism for torture, mandated to monitor the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture (OPCAT), is not independent and has been unable or unwilling to report on cases of torture. It has consistently stated that no cases of torture and ill-treatment have been recorded in detention.
The authorities also routinely curtail the work of other institutions with a mandate to monitor prison conditions and prevent torture. At the international level, the Rwandan government has obstructed the United Nations and other institutions from carrying out essential monitoring work in an independent manner.
In May 2024, Human Rights Watch offered to meet with the Justice Minister to share preliminary findings of this research and learn more about efforts by the government of Rwanda to address the issue of torture in the country, but its senior researcher was denied entry upon arrival at Kigali International Airport.
Rwanda should comply with the provisions of its own constitution and fulfill its obligations under international human rights law—in particular the absolute prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment—by systemically addressing allegations of torture and unlawful detention. It is important that Rwanda’s government intensify efforts to hold all those responsible for torture, particularly those responsible for the torture of detainees, accountable. The government should conduct a comprehensive investigation into torture in Rwanda’s prisons. To lend credibility to the investigation, the government should request the assistance of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHRP) and United Nations experts on torture and prison conditions and should publicly report on its findings. Finally, the Rwandan government should cooperate with the UN Committee against Torture and submit its state party report and permit the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to resume its visit to detention facilities unhindered.
Recommendations
To the Rwandan Government
Close down all unofficial detention locations and release all detainees. If any criminal charges have been or are to be brought against any detainee held in unofficial detention locations, they should be pursued through the courts who should assess the impact of the accused’s detention in an unofficial location on the legality of maintaining criminal proceedings.
Ensure the immediate end to all torture and ill-treatment of detainees and implement and monitor measures to end such abuses in detention centers, including by ensuring detainees have effective access to their lawyers and medical care.
Conduct a comprehensive and transparent investigation into torture and ill-treatment in all prisons and other detention facilities in Rwanda. Discipline or prosecute, as appropriate, all state officials responsible for torture and ill-treatment of detainees; suspend from duty all such officials while investigations are ongoing and charges are pending against them, as well as officials who have been convicted of such crimes and whose appeals are pending.
Ensure that detainees who have suffered torture or ill-treatment have effective avenues for redress.
Ensure that judges adhere to international standards by ordering the investigation of all allegations of torture or ill-treatment and exclude from evidence any statements, confessions, and other information suspected of being obtained through coercion, including torture and other prohibited ill-treatment.
Submit Rwanda’s state party report to the United Nations Committee against Torture to allow the Committee to proceed with Rwanda’s third periodic review and allow the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to resume its country visit to Rwanda unhindered.
Invite relevant human rights mechanisms to Rwanda, including the UN Special Rapporteurs on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, on freedom of expression, and on freedom of association and peaceful assembly, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
To the Rwandan Parliament and the National Commission for Human Rights
Investigate and issue reports evaluating the government’s commitment to human rights, particularly in respect of upholding the rights to life and freedom from torture and arbitrary detention.
Investigate allegations of unlawful and arbitrary detention and torture in detention facilities and report publicly on these investigations.
Publicly and unequivocally condemn torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, and unlawful and arbitrary detention.
To Regional and International Actors
Integrate compliance with human rights standards in programs to support the Rwandan justice sector and in political dialogue with the Rwandan government and monitor compliance with these standards at regular intervals.
In the context of assistance to the justice sector, monitor judicial procedures to help ensure that trials are conducted in accordance with international fair trial standards.
Review financial and other support, including training and capacity-building, to institutions directly involved in human rights violations documented in this report and request the Rwandan government to take concrete steps to end these violations and hold the perpetrators to account.
Request permission to visit the prisons and unofficial detention facility mentioned in this report.
Methodology
This report is based on interviews and reviews of court documents. Between 2019 and 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 28 people, including 13 former detainees who had been held in unofficial detention sites and Rubavu and Nyarugenge prisons in Rwanda between 2017 and 2024. Human Rights Watch reviewed YouTube interviews of former prisoners who described being tortured in detention and reviewed court documents of 53 people, including the trial of former prison director Innocent Kayumba and 17 others on torture, beatings, murder, and other charges. Human Rights Watch obtained information from credible independent sources about prisoner accounts of torture which matched some of the interviewees’ accounts and interviewed relatives of prisoners, lawyers, journalists, and others to corroborate information.
Human Rights Watch conducted most of the interviews by phone with individuals in Rwanda. Researchers explained to each interviewee the purpose of the interview and its voluntary and confidential nature. Unless otherwise specified, all the abuses documented in this report were based on more than two primary and secondary sources.
Names and other identifying information of detainees and other sources have been withheld to protect interviewees from possible reprisals.
On April 29 and May 7, 2024, Human Rights Watch requested meetings with the Justice Minister and the National Commission for Human Rights of Rwanda (NCHR) to share preliminary research findings but received no response from the Justice Minister and was informed that the Chairperson of the Commission was unavailable to meet on the two dates proposed. A Human Rights Watch senior researcher, who travelled to Kigali for meetings secured with foreign diplomatic officials, was denied entry to the country in May.
On September 10, Human Rights Watch sent a detailed letter outlining the findings of this report to the Justice Minister, requesting the government’s response to the findings. The minister has not responded at the time of publication. A letter to the NCHR, sharing research findings and Human Rights Watch’s submission to the Global Alliance for National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), the body charged with monitoring national human rights institutions’ compliance with the Principles relating to the Status of National Institutions, which reviewed the NCHR’s work in October 2024, also received no response. Both letters are included as Annexes to this report.
Torture and Ill-Treatment
They submerged people in cold water, and then took them outside in the mud to beat them. They made them run around the courtyard, barefoot and wet, and beat them.
—Former detainee at Rubavu prison, phone interview, April 2021.
Rwanda’s constitution states that “no one shall be subjected to torture or physical abuse, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”[1] However, although Rwanda has been a party to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Punishment (Convention against Torture) since 2008[2], torture, often in the context of unlawful or arbitrary detention, remains routine in the country. Indeed, Human Rights Watch has long documented how people suspected of collaborating with “enemies” of the Rwandan government were detained unlawfully and tortured in military detention centers by Rwandan army soldiers and intelligence officers. Some of these people were held in unofficial detention facilities for prolonged periods and in inhuman conditions.[3]
Unlawful Detention and Torture at Kwa Gacinya
Human Rights Watch has been conducting interviews with former detainees of Kwa Gacinya, an unofficial detention facility under the control of police in Kigali, and found a pattern of ill-treatment, mock executions, beatings, and torture that dates back to at least 2011.[4] Detainees were often taken there first after their arrest, forced to confess to crimes, and then transferred to an official detention site. Human Rights Watch received information that Kwa Gacinya was now being used as a police station, although two sources connected to the security services told Human Rights Watch the abuse continues to happen in cells in its basement.
A former detainee told Human Rights Watch that after his arrest in 2017, he was handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken to a small cell measuring approximately one by two meters in Kwa Gacinya. He told Human Rights Watch he was beaten so badly around his head and ears by police that his hearing was impaired. He spent a week at Kwa Gacinya before being transferred to Remera police station, also in Kigali.[5]
In a YouTube interview after his release from prison in January 2020, opposition member Venant Abayisenga said he was detained at Kwa Gacinya from September 17 to October 2, 2017, where he was repeatedly beaten and accused of terrorism and working against the government: “At one point, they [judicial police officials] brought a gun and told me they would shoot me.… I lived handcuffed in a small individual room. It was a place of fear.”[6] Abayisenga said he was interrogated by judicial police officers without a lawyer. He said that he was beaten when he asked for a lawyer and was told that his other colleagues who had been arrested had been killed and that he would also be killed. “There are people who are killed at Kwa Gacinya, you hear the voice of the person being killed, and then you hear someone come in to clean up the room,” he said.
Abayisenga and nine other opposition members were arrested in the aftermath of the 2017 elections and put on trial, during which several of the defendants described being tortured and forced to confess to crimes. However, according to Human Rights Watch’s review of trial documents and interviews with people present, the judges did not order an investigation into the allegations of torture at Kwa Gacinya. These serious allegations were also not reflected in the National Commission for Human Rights’ (NCHR) public reporting on prison conditions and torture for each of the three years between 2017 and 2020, when the trial concluded.[7] Abayisenga was acquitted and released from detention in January 2020.
Five months after his interview on YouTube, in which he detailed his allegations of torture, Abayisenga went missing. He was last seen on June 6, 2020, leaving the house of Victoire Ingabire in Remera Sector, Gasabo District, Kigali, to buy phone credit.[8] The Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB), a nominally autonomous specialized body responsible for investigations and supporting local law enforcement agencies, announced it was investigating the disappearance but has yet to produce any results of its investigation into Abayisenga’s disappearance.
Human Rights Watch reviewed court documents and interviewed sources relating to a separate trial of 25 people accused of security-related offenses, including terrorism, forming or aiding a criminal gang, and conspiracy against the government or president.[9]
During the proceedings, which took place from 2018 to 2020, several defendants alleged that they had spent between five and six months in incommunicado detention at Kwa Gacinya. They described being held in “coffin-like” cells, of approximately one by two meters, and that they were regularly beaten and forced to confess to the crimes with which they were charged. One defendant claimed that his family was not informed of his whereabouts and thought he was dead. He also presented letters his family had sent to government institutions asking for information on his whereabouts.[10]
Another defendant said he was arrested by military officers, who blindfolded him and took him to a detention facility, believed to be Kwa Gacinya, where he was held in a small cell: “When we arrived they beat me almost to death until I started vomiting blood… they beat me again until I was forced to confessed to acts which have nothing to do with me.” He said he was then presented to the judicial police and forced to confess to crimes with which he was later charged.[11]
Court documents reveal that judges and prosecutors ignored complaints from detainees about their unlawful detention and ill-treatment.[12]
Human Rights Watch is not aware that any meaningful investigation has been conducted into the abuse that occurred there.
Ill-Treatment and Torture in Nyarugenge and Rubavu Prisons
Nyarugenge Prison
During trials that Human Rights Watch monitored since 2019, several detainees held at Nyarugenge prison told the courts that they were subjected to torture and ill-treatment in prison. They described a pattern of abuse involving prison officials or prisoners under orders from prison staff, forcing prisoners into a water-filled container and beating them. This treatment was put in place by Innocent Kayumba, the prison director at Nyarugenge after he was transferred from Rubavu prison in 2019. Human Rights Watch interviewed 13 former detainees held in these prisons who corroborated accounts given in court about this kind of treatment. All indicated that Kayumba was involved with putting in place and implementing this abuse, and some said that other prisoners had also been transferred from Rubavu prison, where they previously assisted Kayumba with the implementation, to do the same in Nyarugenge.
Several former prisoners spoke of severe malnutrition in the prisons. One former detainee at Nyarugenge (also known as Mageragere) prison said:
Mageragere is hell. You’re given one meal a day, usually around 11 a.m. That meal has to keep you going for 24 hours.… People die from malnutrition, you can see the bodies dragged on makeshift stretchers made of wood and tires.[13]
After his January 2020 acquittal and release from prison, Dalfa-Umurinzi member Théophile Ntirutwa gave an online video interview in which he described his incommunicado detention and torture at Nyarugenge prison: “In Mageragere, there is a place called Yordani.… [Prisoners] are taken there and seriously beaten.”[14]
At least five other former detainees confirmed to Human Rights Watch his description of the ordeal detainees faced in the place referred to as “Yordani” in Nyarugenge prison, conditions that were also documented at Rubavu prison and described during Kayumba’s trial (see below). One former detainee said: “Yordani was filled with dirty water that was poured into this sort of container, then a person was told to go in it and beaten with wooden sticks.”[15] “They beat prisoners in the water, the water was dirty, some had defecated or urinated in it, and there was blood because some were wounded.… Prisoners suffocated in there, the guards pushed our faces down in the water,” said another.[16]
Ntirutwa was re-arrested on May 11, 2020, following a violent incident at his shop in Kigali, during which a man was stabbed to death.[17] He was sentenced to seven years in prison for “spreading false information or harmful propaganda with intent to cause a hostile international opinion against [the] Rwandan Government,” on the basis of phone calls he made to Ingabire, the Dalfa-Umurinzi party leader, and a journalist, in which he spoke publicly about the incident.[18]
On February 12, 2019, FDU-Inkingi member, Fabien Twagirayezu, who was on trial on terrorism-related charges, told the Kigali High Court he was being tortured at Nyarugenge prison and that he wrote to the NCHR and the Justice Minister, who sent someone to speak with him, but that the beatings continued.[19] During an April 25, 2019 hearing, Twagirayezu said he was interrogated at gunpoint and threatened and told he would lose his life if he didn’t answer questions by two agents of the Department of Criminal Investigations on September 9, 2017.[20] Twagirayezu was convicted alongside five other party members in January 2020 and the group was handed sentences ranging from seven to ten years.[21]
Dieudonné Niyonsenga, the owner of Ishema TV, a YouTube channel, is currently serving a 7-year sentence in Nyarugenge prison for his work as a journalist.[22] After his arrest in April 2020, he was held in multiple locations in Kigali, told to confess to working with the Rwanda National Congress (RNC), an exiled opposition party with reported ties to armed groups, and accused of taking drugs and attacking law enforcement officers.[23]
After his trial began, Niyonsenga repeatedly told the court that he was being subjected to ill-treatment and torture while detained at Nyarugenge prison. On January 10, 2022, he said he was being held in a small dark cell and treated worse than other prisoners. He asked for medical attention and for the court to investigate his detention conditions.[24]
In November 2022, Niyonsenga’s father gave a YouTube interview to denounce the treatment of his son in prison, describing how his son was weak, looking sick, and deprived of medical treatment and adequate food in detention.[25]
Niyonsenga told a Kigali court on January 10, 2024, that he was detained in a “hole” that often fills with water, without access to light, and beaten frequently. He said his hearing and eyesight have become impaired due to his three-year long detention in “inhuman” conditions and beatings.[26]
An online commentator detained at Nyarugenge prison in violation of his freedom of expression has also reported ill-treatment to the court over the course of his trial. During a hearing on May 30, 2022, Aimable Karasira,[27] a genocide survivor and former professor charged with genocide denial and justification and divisionism, told the court that Nyarugenge prison authorities tortured him, including through sleep deprivation, with constant light and loud music, and through beatings, to punish him and get him to attend court hearings.[28] Karasira and his lawyer told the court he was being denied medical treatment for diabetes and mental health issues and was not fit to participate in the proceedings but was brought to court by force. He also accused prison authorities of denying him adequate or sufficient food and access to lawyers and money sent by friends or relatives. At a court hearing in July 2022, he told the court he had been punished and beaten for speaking out during his court appearances.[29] To the best of Human Rights Watch’s knowledge, the judge has not ordered an investigation into any of these allegations.
Rubavu Prison
Human Rights Watch interviewed former detainees of Rubavu prison who described the types of abuse put in place by then-prison director Innocent Kayumba, corroborating the allegations presented to judges during the trial that took place between September 2023 and April 2024 (see below).
One former detainee from Rubavu prison said: “I saw Kayumba. He was the director when I was there. He hit people a lot.… When I entered the prison, he was the one who hit me.… When he was tired, he told his security people to continue.… Many people were tortured. Some died, some are disabled now. Some lost the use of a body part, others lost their teeth.”[30]
Human Rights Watch obtained the names of 11 prisoners whom former detainees said died following beatings, including several whose cases were brought forward during Kayumba’s trial.
A former detainee who was held at Rubavu prison from 2017 to 2021 told Human Rights Watch that Kayumba beat prisoners during his time as prison director there: “Many people died after being tortured, but sometimes also because of prison conditions. We were almost killed. Political prisoners were treated worse than the rest.… I was accused of being a traitor, of trying to harm my country. They said if I continue this way with the opposition, I won’t survive long.”[31]
Several former prisoners said that many of the beatings were carried out by prisoners who had been appointed by the prison management. A former detainee at Rubavu said: “Prisoners acted as if they were in charge of security.… They hit people, they put them outside all night in the cold. They used a place called ‘Yordani.’… I have no words, it was horrible. The water was cold. Sometimes, the person was found dead the next morning.”[32] Another former detainee said prisoners were made to run barefoot around the courtyard until they collapsed.[33]
Prison Officials and Prisoners on Trial for Abuse at Rubavu Prison
They acquitted some of the prison officials, but these men were responsible when we were getting beaten. Some of the prisoners testified about it.
—Former detainee at Rubavu prison, July 2024.
By law, including the constitution, torture is prohibited in Rwanda.[34] The law prescribes 20 to 25 years’ imprisonment for any person convicted of torture and lifetime imprisonment for public officials who committed torture in the course of their official duties.[35]
In 2023, two former prisoners, Théoneste Niyitegeka and Emmanuel Ndagijimana, spoke out publicly on YouTube detailing their allegations of how they were tortured in December 2020 in Rubavu prison.[36] A month later, the government charged and put on trial 18 prison officials and prisoners, including former prison directors and senior officials, for offenses including murder, assault, and torture, carried out in Rubavu prison between 2019 and 2022.[37]
During the trial, which took place from October 2023 to April 2024, prisoners gave evidence about the defendants’ involvement in torture practices, which at times led to the death of detainees. On April 5, 2024, former prison director Innocent Kayumba, two Rwanda Correctional Service (RCS) officers, and seven prisoners informally charged with security in the prison, were found guilty of offenses including assault and murder.[38] None of the officials or prisoners were convicted of torture, despite the fact that the acts described by the witnesses and the prosecution fit the definition of torture under both Rwandan and international law.[39]
During the trial, prisoners and witnesses gave chilling accounts of how Kayumba and his co-accused carried out beatings of prisoners, leading to the deaths of several prisoners. In several cases examined during the trial, the victims were beaten and killed for allegedly bringing money into the prison, refusing to share information, or attempting to escape. The testimonies describe a deeply entrenched culture of violence and impunity in the prison, where detainees were subjected to abuse for years, with no access to redress or protection.
In one case, the prosecution accused Kayumba of ordering an officer to tie a prisoner to a tree and beat him for allegedly stealing a blanket.[40] The prisoner died from his injuries, according to witnesses who testified during the trial. In another, a prisoner charged with security was accused of murdering another prisoner who refused to have sexual intercourse with him.[41]
A civil suit was filed by Ndagijimana, claiming that he was left with permanent disabilities due to the beatings he suffered in prison, but the court concluded it was unfounded.[42]
Kayumba’s 15-year sentence is below the minimum sentence established by Rwandan law for torture, which states that “if torture results in an incurable illness, permanent incapacity to work, full loss of function of an organ or mutilation of any key body organ, death or is committed by a public official in his/her duties, the penalty is life imprisonment.”[43] Kayumba had previously been convicted in 2021 for stealing from inmates, for which he was given a five-year sentence.[44]
Senior prison officials Augustin Uwayezu and Ephrem Gahungu were acquitted despite evidence presented in court indicating that they had, at best, turned a blind eye to abuse and failed to order investigations, or at worst, been directly involved in it. Niyitegeka and Ndagijimana spoke publicly about their knowledge of the acquitted officials’ involvement in torture at Rubavu prison.[45]
It was some of the prisoners who had been put in charge of security by the custodial services who were handed the heaviest sentences of up to 25 years in prison for murder. Several of them testified that they had carried out the abuse under threat from the authorities.[46]
During the trial, the accused and former detainees gave evidence about the deaths of several detainees including Jean-Marie Vianney Nzeyimana, Etienne Agahanze, Martin Kayumba, Jean-Claude Seyeze, Damien Gasigwa, Xavier Ngarambe, Lambert Abdelatif, and the severe injuries inflicted on Emmanuel Ndagijimana. The court decided that the information related to the deaths of Agahanze and Seyeze was contradictory, and the accused were acquitted of the torture, murder, and assault charges in relation to those two men.[47] Human Rights Watch’s independently received information on the deaths of the two men indicating that the victims were beaten to death.
One prisoner testifying at the trial spoke of the container filled with water at “Yordani,” detailed above. Other detainees who participated in the beatings and torture pleaded not guilty on the grounds that they were following orders given to them by staff. One such detainees said that he was transferred from Rubavu to Nyarugenge prison by Kayumba to implement the same system of torture there.[48]
Monitoring and Oversight
They tortured me to make me sign confessions and told me my colleagues had been killed.… They said I would be the next to be killed.
—Venant Abayisenga, June 27, 2018 hearing, Kigali High Court
Under international law, states must ensure that, even without an official complaint, allegations of torture are promptly, impartially, and thoroughly investigated, so that those responsible can be and are brought to justice, and that victims have access to an effective remedy and receive reparation.[49] However, the government in Rwanda, and its institutions with a mandate to safeguard human rights, rarely if ever order such investigations.
Rwanda officially became a state party to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT) on June 30, 2015.[50] In 2017, the United Nations Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, a UN body established pursuant to the provisions of the OPCAT, was forced to suspend and later (for the first time ever) cancel its visit to Rwanda citing obstruction by the authorities and fear of reprisals against interviewees.[51] Rwanda has also failed to submit its third periodic state report to the Committee against Torture, a UN body which monitors implementation of the Convention against Torture, due since December 6, 2021, therefore frustrating its review by the Committee.[52]
Since 2021, the government has not allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to monitor prison conditions according to the ICRC’s standards, causing the ICRC to discontinue its prison-monitoring activities in the country.[53] There is no independent monitoring of prison conditions in Rwanda today.
National Commission for Human Rights
In September 2018, the law giving the mandate of National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) to Rwanda’s National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) entered into force.[54] The NCHR is now mandated to carry out, with or without notice, regular visits to all places where people may be deprived of liberty and issue recommendations.[55]
The NCHR publishes annual activity and thematic reports on its protection and monitoring work. The reports mostly ignore human rights violations relating to the targeting of critics, real or perceived, arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment, extrajudicial executions, and enforced disappearances.
In 2017, the UN Committee against Torture, the treaty body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Convention against Torture, expressed concern that there had been no mention of arbitrary detention in military facilities in the NCHR’s annual reports for years, despite credible allegations from formerly detained individuals.[56] As part of its protection mandate, the NCHR is to “examine human rights violations in Rwanda committed by public or private organs, associations, non-governmental organizations, persons abusing their powers, a group of persons or individuals.”[57] Yet, public organs, in particular security forces, which have been involved in abuses in Rwanda, are rarely if ever identified as perpetrators across all reports examined by Human Rights Watch.
The Commission’s 2022–2023 annual report concludes that “detainees are not subjected to torture or other physical or psychological harm.”[58] The Commission came to the same conclusion that there were no reports of torture in its 2021-2022, 2020-2021, 2019-2020, 2018-2019, and 2017-2018 annual reports, contradicting findings by Human Rights Watch and others.[59]
Acknowledgements
This report was researched and written by Clémentine de Montjoye, senior researcher in the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, based on phone interviews and trial monitoring conducted between 2019 and 2024. A research assistant provided research support. The report was reviewed by Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director in the Africa division, Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy director in the Africa division, Aisling Reidy, senior legal advisor, and Babatunde Olugboji, deputy program director. Production and editing assistance were provided by Anna Bruckner, coordinator in the Africa division, Travis Carr, publications officer, and Jose Martinez , administrative officer, provided production assistance.
Sarah Leblois translated the report into French. Peter Huvos, French website editor, and Anna Bruckner vetted the French translation.
Human Rights Watch wishes to thank the Rwandans who were willing to speak about their experiences, sometimes at great personal risk.
