A Rwandan court sentenced a popular YouTuber and a genocide survivor to 15 years in jail for making critical comments about President Paul Kagame.
According to the court, Yvonne Idamange was inciting violence after claiming that president Kagame is a dictator on her YouTube channel.
The 42-year old however was not in court when the judgment was delivered on Thursday September 30.
She was also fined about Kshs 200, 000. The prosecution had however sought that she be jailed for 30 years and a fine of over Kshs600, 000.
The mother of four who survived the 1994 genocide attack was arrested in February. The police said that she was arrested because of exhibiting behaviour that mixes politics, criminality, and madness.
This is after she shared a video claiming that president Kagame died a long time ago while urging citizens to protest and demand to see his body.
She had also claimed that COVID-19 had become a new tool for the government to repress people, replacing the 1994 Tutsi Genocide.
The Kigali High court found her guilty of inciting violence and public uprising, denigrating genocide artefacts, spreading rumors and violent assault, obstructing the work of law enforcement agencies, and issuing a bouncing check.
The accusations were based on her YouTube channel dubbed ‘Indamange’ which has over 18,900 subscribers and an average of 100,000 views per video.
The YouTuber is among Rwandans who have fallen victim of the government after using social media to criticize Kagame’s administration.
In March, Human Rights Watch raised alarm over Kigali’s crackdown on people using YouTube or blogs to speak out about some controversial issues in Rwanda.
HRW said then that at least eight people reporting or commenting on current affairs such as the impact of strict anti-Covid measures which have hit the poor hard, have been threatened, arrested, or prosecuted in the past year.
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