The New Times (Kigali)
2 November 2009
The decision not to transfer to Rwanda suspects and convicts from International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), has once again put the tribunal under spotlight as a fellow UN court sends in convicts to serve their sentences in the country.
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The governement of Rwanda is laudable indeed for the facilities they put up in Mpanga. The prison was designed to receive convicts from the ICTR sentenced for their participation in the 1994 genocide.
For the ICTR to accept the transfer of the convicted to Rwanda, the governement had to provide conditions of detention meeting internationally recognised standards.
However, this should not let us forget that about 60'000 inmates are living in dire conditions in the rest of the country's prisons. The prison authorities still have a lot to do to bring the detention conditions to a mere human level and not let these people live in degrading and health threatening conditions.
Let's hope that the governement of Rwanda will give the prison authorities the means to fulfill their full mandate of detaining convicts while respecting their dignity.