Rwanda: Supreme Court upholds genocide law

http://www.rnanews.com/national/6561-supreme-court-upholds-genocide-law Supreme Court upholds genocide law Thursday, 18 October 2012 17:14 by Paul Clarke Victoire Ingabire, accused of financing terrorism and denying the 1994 genocide, left the Supreme Court on Thursday after a panel of nine judges upheld the country's genocide ideology law. Kigali: Rwanda's Supreme Court upheld the country's genocide ideology law Thursday, after jailed opposition leader, Victoire Umuhoza Ingabire, who stands accused of genocide ideology, challenged its legality. Arrested in 2010 and accused of financing terrorism and denying the 1994 genocide, Ingabire, who heads the yet to be registered FDU-Inkingi party, filed the legal challenge in March.  "The court finds no contradiction between the genocide ideology law and the constitution. It is true the constitution grants freedom of expression and speech but the genocide ideology law puts limitations to avoid violations of the freedoms," the nine-man panel of judges said in its ruling. The genocide denial charges against Ingabire were triggered by remarks in January 2010 at Gisozi Genocide Memorial in Kigali. Ingabire appeared in a courtroom packed with supporters from her party. "I do not agree with the decision of the court," Ingabire said, as she was escorted out of the court house in handcuffs into a waiting van. Ingabire petitioned the Supreme Court to repeal articles four and nine of the law against genocide ideology saying they contradict articles 33 and 34 of the constitution that guarantees freedom of expression. With the law upheld, the High Court is expected to announce the verdict of her trial on Friday. She is officially charged with "financial support to a terrorist group, planning state insecurity and divisionism." Prosecutors have called for her to be given a life sentence. Supporters of Ingabire said she will boycott the ruling, as she has done since April, after the court cut short a witness who accused authorities of rigging evidence against her. The half-hour ruling cited three international court cases which found the accused in those cases guilty of hate crimes despite using freedom of expression as a legal defense. "These laws are set on stopping critical voices in Rwanda," said Boniface Twagirimana, vice-president of FDU-Inkingi. "The justice here is used in the interests of the government," said Sibomana Sylvain, secretary general of FDU-Inkingi, outside of court. "When you try to express yourself like an opposition party, they say you are an enemy of the country. That is not true. We only try to express ourselves as different ideas than the government," he said. Eight other opposition leaders are currently in jail, said Sylvain, including Bernard Ntaganda, president of the PS-Imberakuri party, who was sentenced to four years imprisonment in 2011 for holding public speeches criticizing government policies ahead of the 2010 presidential election.