Media rights bodies have expressed alarm at reports that journalist Dieudonné Niyonsenga, pictured, had been tortured in a Rwandan prison, and called on the authorities to unconditionally release him. He is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for forgery and impersonation.

During a hearing in January at the court of appeal in Kigali, Mr Niyonsenga said that he was held under inhumane conditions in a “hole” and was frequently beaten, according to court documents reviewed by the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ. He appeared in court with a head wound and said that his hearing and vision were impaired by the conditions of his detention. His lawyers also told the court that prison officials seized documents he needed to further prepare his case.

“Dieudonné Niyonsenga was convicted following a trial whose irregularities exposed the political nature of his prosecution. Now Rwandan authorities compound the injustice by mistreating him behind bars and frustrating his efforts to have his case reviewed,” said CPJ sub-Saharan Africa Representative, Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should unconditionally release Niyonsenga, investigate his painful testimony of torture and detention under hellish conditions, and hold those responsible to account.” 

The court postponed the case to give defence lawyers more time to prepare their case.

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Mr Niyonsenga published commentary and news reports on a YouTube channel, Ishema TV,  which is no longer available online, and was initially arrested in April 2020, following allegations that he had breached Rwanda’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order, the Rwanda Investigation Bureau said at the time. He was later tried on charges of forging a press card, impersonating a journalist, hindering implementation of government-ordered work and “humiliating authorities” an offence which was repealed in Rwanda in 2019.

Niyonsenga was acquitted and freed in March 2021. However, he was convicted on those same charges in November 2021 and taken into state custody after prosecutors appealed, according to the CPJ’s documentation.

In March 2022, an appeal court upheld Niyonsenga’s conviction on charges of forgery and impersonation but overturned the conviction on humiliating authorities.

Approaches to the Rwandan ministry of justice and correctional services by the CPJ have not been answered.

“Harrowing accounts of torture in prison and failure to provide justice in the suspicious death of a leading investigative journalist set a somber start to the year for journalists in Rwanda,” said the Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch, Lewis Mudge. “Rwanda’s record on press freedom will most likely continue to worsen unless the judiciary starts to act independently and immediately releases journalists jailed in violation of their freedom of expression, and authorities stop targeting journalists altogether.”