12 Weeks of Continued Isolation for Democracy Prisoner Victoire Ingabire

Boniface Twagirimana for Salem-News.com

The government needs to stop its pressure and allow a proper, meticulous and thorough preparation of the defence for a lengthy political process.

Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire. Photo courtesy: Christian Science Monitor

(KIGALI, Rwanda) - The political prisoner Victoire Ingabire, chair of FDU-Inkingi, is spending her 246th day in maximum security. For the 12th consecutive week she is refused any visits by party members.

A delegation of 11 colleagues was harshly turned back. All the leading political prisoners such as Bernard Ntaganda (Founding President of Parti Social Imberakuri), Deo Mushayidi (Chair of PDP Imanzi), Charles Ntakirutinka (Leader of PDR Ubuyanja), Dr. Theoneste Niyitegeka (presidential candidate in 2003) and Sylvère Mwizerwa (PS Imberakuri Permanent Secretary) are submitted to unrelenting cruel conditions.

The politically motivated trial of Madame Victoire Ingabire is resuming on 20th June 2011 despite new protest letters from her defence counsel who have not yet received all the pieces of the file.

The government needs to stop its pressure and allow a proper, meticulous and thorough preparation of the defence for a lengthy political process. No real trial start is possible before at least September 2011 as requested by the defence unless the government continues to push for a condemnation without hearings, cross-examinations, evidence challenge and calls for defence witnesses and subpoenas to foreign governments' leaders, UN experts, international companies and organisations.

The politically motivated detention aimed to destroy our party. It was well calculated as it took only four months to trigger an internal crisis within the party. Since then some groups of black-hearted dissidents have staged a hidden war against the imprisoned party leader and the interim Executive Committee based in Kigali under the leadership of Victoire Ingabire.

The internet invitations of party members to attend healing meetings on 18 and 25 June 2011 in Brussels to discuss Madame Ingabire's material support and the future of the party are just another distraction by the foes. The interim committee and the family of Madame Victoire Ingabire are not associated to any of those wild initiatives.

Nothing will deter our struggle for democracy and our dedication to her leadership.

FDU-INKINGI
Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice President