Rwandan authorities are coordinating a systematic campaign of repression at home and abroad against political activists, suspected dissidents and their family members, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, raising questions about plans by the UK government to send asylum seekers there.
The US-based rights group details an alleged campaign of extraterritorial killings, kidnappings, and intimidation, as well as arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances on Rwandan soil.
The 115-page report—which covers the years since 2017—also accuses the government in Kigali of routinely abusing global judicial and police mechanisms, including the Interpol system, in its determination to return perceived enemies to Rwanda.
HRW details multiple cases of harassment, arbitrary detention, torture, and sometimes the disappearance of relatives of suspected dissidents—tactics apparently adopted to persuade exiles to censor themselves or return home. “The targeting of relatives is a particularly vicious form of control,” the report’s authors note.
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