The ladies and gentlemen of the "media watchdog" Reporters Without Borders (RSF) are at it again. This time they have gone and ranked Rwanda 147 out of 169 countries on its media freedoms index.

Now, a placing of 147 out of 169 would suggest to a foreigner that journalists in Rwanda are being thrown in jail; that they are being cornered and harassed and their newspaper offices are being bombed or something.

So, you may ask, what has RSF based on to decide to give Rwanda such an appalling image? Here is what: the beating of a fellow called Bosco Gasasira earlier this year; the fact that two individuals called Tatiana Mukakibibi and Dominique Makeli have been in prison for several years; the fact that Internal Security Minister Musa Fazil Harerimana threatened journalists with imprisonment in the future if they did not disclose their sources. And so on.

Truly, wonders never cease.

Mr Gasasira, "editor" of Umuvugizi newspaper gets beaten up by yet to be known persons for yet to be known motives. The government gets so concerned about his health that it arranges for him to fly to Brussels for hospitalization and foots the entire bill. But the next thing you know is that the RSF (and similar organizations) has worked it out that government had a hand in the man's beating.

Tatiana Mukakibibi and Dominique Makeli were Genocide propagandists, same as Hassan Ngeze. They are behind bars for their role in inciting great numbers of people to massacre others. But you know what, RSF and sister organizations in the West are trying to turn these Genocidaires case into some international cause celebre. It is a truly amazing world.

And why would RSF create the impression that the words of Internal Security Minister Musa Fazil Harerimana (he who threatened imprisonment for journalists who refused to disclose their sources) defined national policy?

Three weeks ago, in an editorial in this newspaper, we classified Mr Harerimana's utterances as a case of foot in mouth, nothing more, nothing less. Otherwise by now every editor would be in jail. But for its mysterious reasons, RSF chooses to disregard these facts.

The RSF's Leonard Vincent, Head of the organization's Africa Desk said, "The attacks, particularly against Umuseso and Umuco, have led to very dangerous situations for the journalists who are employed by these media and have raised a lot of concern for human rights and press freedom organizations."

Wow. Haven't we been up this path before? Attacks against Umuseso and Umuco have been reported so often over so many years that one should wonder: how many lives do these fellows have? Memo to RSF - probably more than the nine lives of a cat!

The RSF's index ranks all countries in the great lakes region as having better conditions for the media compared to Rwanda. Even the DR Congo comes in at number 133. This is a country where 4 journalists have been killed this year alone mark you, and several others have survived with constant threats from government and militias.

So, how come the Congo is a country with more media freedoms than Rwanda? Fishing around, the RSF's man Mr Vincent, says that the situation is much better in DRC because "pluralism is the rule, even if journalists are the regular victims of political violence and instability."

Honestly, how does one take these people seriously?

They sit wherever they sit in Europe and never set a foot in the places they write about and assess and give rankings to. Their modus operandi is to telephone people like the editors of Umuseso and Umuco and then write wholesale whatever propaganda the latter feel inclined to feed them.

Last month, RSF, according to a news report by the Rwanda News Agency, was up in arms over what it described as threats from four government ministers who promised to get hard with the media if it continued undermining President Paul Kagame.

In the interest of fairness even to government officials (the same ones we described as putting their foot in their mouth), let's give that statement its true definition: it is a load of rubbish. Because no one has "gotten hard" on any media house yet.

Stretching their baloney to the limit RSF claims that international pressure was responsible for a recent, two-day closed-door meeting members of the press had with President Kagame.

We met the man because we requested him to. Any honest Rwandan journalist will tell you the President did not call that meeting. However since it was a closed-door meeting I will not disclose any further here.

Much as the work of any international media organization that fights for the rights of journalists is appreciable, the half-truths and outright falsehoods of the RSF can only further harden one's cynicism about such organizations.