Reporters sans Frontières (Paris)
17 July 2008
press release
Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns this week's deportation of Fuhara Mugisha, the deputy managing editor of Rwanda's leading independent weekly, Umuseso. Despite having a Rwandan mother, Mugisha is a citizen of neighbouring Tanzania.
"This is an unacceptable act of intimidation that yet again highlights the Rwandan government's inability to tolerate the few independent publications," Reporters Without Borders said. "In the run-up to legislative elections, we remind the government that media diversity is an essential condition for the holding of democratic elections."
Plain-clothes police came to Mugisha's home in the north Kigali district of Kacyru at 4 a.m. on 12 July and said they wanted to take him to their office to assist in an investigation. But instead they drove him to the immigration department and from there he was taken to the Rumoso border crossing into Tanzania and expelled.
"This is all part of a desire to gag the press and uproot the independent media," Umuseso publisher Charles Kabonero said. Employed by Umuseso since 2003, Mugisha was the victim of a knife attack in 2004 by assailants who were never identified.
With a Rwandan mother and a Tanzanian father, Mugisha used to have a Rwandan passport and ID card, but the authorities refused to renew them in 2005.
Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world. It has nine national sections (Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). It has representatives in Bangkok, London, New York, Tokyo and Washington. And it has more than 120 correspondents worldwide.
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Ok, now I'm confused! I just read in another publication that both his parents are Tanzanian and Mr Mugisha himself confirmed it. So...half Rwandese or not? Shouldn't be hard to know!
This is astonishing for a country like Rwanda to do this to a Tanzanian. Suppose Tanzania decide to expell all Rwandise living in Tanzania . This is a true colour for new East African members!!
Museveni aide ‘bought chemical, bio weapons’ Monitor correspondent
London
A Danish national appeared before a London court on Monday on charges of transferring chemical and biological weapons to Mr Ananias Tumukunde, an aide to President Museveni who has been in the custody of British authorities for several weeks on charges of money laundering.
Mr Niels Jørgen Tobiasen, 55, who appeared before the Southwark Crown Court for a pre-trial hearing, is a director in a Copenhagen-based firm that supplies sophisticated software and hardware to armed forces in the United States, Great Britain, Nato, and to more than 20 other countries. He is suspected of having dealings with Mr Tumukunde, a Ugandan diplomatic passport holder, who was arrested in the UK on April 3, charged with five money laundering-related offences, and remanded at Hamondsworth Prison. Mr Tobiasen was arrested on July 17 in London after a two-month investigation, and three months after Mr Tumukunde first appeared in court. Mr Tumukunde was not in court on Monday when Mr Tobiasen appeared before Southwark Crown Court but prosecutor David Levy asked Justice Martin Beddoe to have the two suspects appear in court together when trial starts on August 22.
According to the indictment seen by Daily Monitor, it is alleged that between April 1, 2007 and April 4, 2008, Mr Tobiasen “conspired together with Ananias Tumukunde and Lt. Col. Rusoke Tagaswire to transfer, acquire, use or have possession of criminal property” in contravention of Britain’s Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Prosecution says Mr Tobiasen “on the 15th day of January 2008 transferred criminal property, namely Chemical and Biological weapons”. Lt. Col. Tagaswire, a Uganda People’s Defence Force officer, is still at large. A bio-chemist with a degree in toxicology, Lt. Col. Tagaswire was part of the team appointed by President Museveni last year to investigate the suspicious death of Brig. Noble Mayombo who died after a sudden and intense illness that aroused suspicion of poisoning. The report of their findings has not been made public.
During Mr Tumukunde’s last appearance at Southwark Crown Court, the prosecutor, Mr David Whitaker, alleged that Uganda’s diplomatic mission in London was not cooperating in the case against President Museveni’s adviser. Uganda’s High Commissioner to London Joan Rwabyomere denied the claim in an interview with Daily Monitor.
“Yes, we received the questionnaire from [the Crown Prosecution Service]. I forwarded the questionnaire to the Attorney General in Kampala but we haven’t received the response,” Ms Rwabyomere said.
Deputy Attorney General Freddie Ruhindi claimed the office had not received the questionnaire and referred inquiries about the two Ugandan officials back to the high commission in London. The High Commissioner and her deputy, Ms Mumtaz Kassam, were not available for comment.
The army and the government yesterday denied any wrongdoing but pledged to cooperate with the investigators. The Presidential Guard Brigade Spokesman, Capt. Edson Kwesiga, said; “It’s true Lt. Tagaswire is one of us but it’s not right to say he has connections with Mr Tumukunde. We are more than willing to help the investigators in this case with any information they may require.”
The Minister of Information, Mr Kirunda Kivejinja, said yesterday: “We want to identify the actual mission he (Tumukunde) had gone for, but as government we don’t do clandestine work. We will assist in giving any information they (investigators) want….”
Ms Kassam and President Museveni’s legal aide Fox Odoi have been seen outside the London courthouse where Mr Tumukunde is being tried. Lawyers working for the Kampala government have separately asked court to either drop the charges against Mr Tumukunde or have him released on bail but on both occasions, the judges have concurred with prosecutors; Mr David Levy and Mr David Whitaker that Mr Tumukunde should remain in custody as investigations continue. Each count against Mr Tumukunde carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in jail.
Chemical and biological weapons are considered weapons of mass destruction. The release of nerve agent sarin in a Tokyo subway in 1995 was a rare terrorist chemical attack while the mailing of anthrax bacteria to government and news media offices in the United States in 2001 is one of the most recent examples. Uganda is a signatory to both the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention which prohibit the use of these types of weapons due, in part, to the indiscriminate nature of their lethal effects.
This is unacceptable! The man has every right to live in the country, he has a Rwandese mother, for Christ's sake! How exactly do they explain treating him as an illegal?? I expect every respectable media in the country to support him or else they'll just be useless to their own.