Member-only story
It’s Human Rights Day; Free Paul Rusesabagina
On December 10, the world recognizes International Human Rights Day. This is the perfect time to release human rights activist and humanitarian, Paul Rusesabagina. His heroism was documented in the film, “Hotel Rwanda.” He has been credited with saving 1,268 people during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In 2005, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom “remarkable courage and compassion in the face of genocidal terror.”
On August 27, Rusesabagina was kidnapped, bound, tortured, and taken to Kigali, Rwanda, where he was arrested and initially charged with “criminal mischief.” The charges against him were expanded but the real reason for his arrest and imprisonment is simple; he is an outspoken critic of President Paul Kagame.
This is the ultimate crime for Kagame. For people inside Rwanda, there is the unwritten rule that you do not criticize Kagame, his actions or his government. You also do not challenge his narrative of what happened during the genocide in 1994. Far from being the savior of the nation he now leads, he has been implicated in war crimes committed at the tail end of the genocide. The only thing that prevented his prosecution was intervention by the United States.
So complete is Kagame’s control over his people, he holds reenactments of the 1994 tragedy every year. This has…