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Reporter’s Notebook: media crackdown in Rwanda
Thu, 09/09/2010 - 13:09
- Year: 2010
- Length: 4:50 minutes (4.43 MB)
- Format: MP3 Mono 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
Across Africa, pressure on media workers has been increasing. A court in Togo suspended a newspaper after it published an article that linked the president’s brother with drug trafficking. In Somalia, a reporter was stabbed to death recently after leaving his radio station. The 25-year-old was the third journalist killed there this year.
Today, we’ll examine media repression in Rwanda, though the experiences of an FSRN reporter who covered the recent elections in the country. Zack Baddorf files this reporter’s notebook.
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A contradiction indeed
It is indeed a contradiction that this report talks about the media crackdown while Zack Baddorf's September 21 one does not say anything about that. It is difficult to believe that it is the exact same reporter doing both.
Rwanda's so-called presidential elections on August 9th, 2010 were nothing but a sham. General Kagame stole the election after the suspicious beheading of an opposition leader, the suspicious murder of an independent journalist, the jailing of journalists, the jailing of opposition leaders, the jailing of opposition lawyers, the shutting down of independent media, and preventing opposition parties from taking part in the election.
Why then report, on 09.21, that Kagame was "elected" with 93%?
Why, after reporting this, did Zack Baddorf report, on 09.21, in "Rwanda village brings together Hutus and Tutsis on path toward reconciliation," http://fsrn.org/audio/rwanda-village-brings-together-hutus-and-tutsis-pa..., that Paul Kagame had actually won re-election with 93% of the vote? That is a dubious outcome in any real pluralist democracy, and there was every demonstration that this was not a real election. Kagame's opponents were executed within Rwanda, and in three neighboring countries in the run-up to the election, none of the viable opposition was allowed to enter the race, and, as Zack Baddorf reports here, the media was suppressed, even assassinated.
That was not a real election; it was a stage play for the international community and FSRN has damaged its credibility by, on 09.21, reporting it as such.