Opposition activist Victoire Ingabir, a critic of long-time President Paul Kagame, was arrested in Rwanda, a day after she participated in the trial of defendants in Kigali for "distributing a book by a Serbian author on 'how to overthrow a dictator when you are alone, small and unarmed', which details peaceful methods of resisting authoritarianism," writes the French agency AFP.
The name of the author is not mentioned in the AFP text, but it is probably Srđa Popović, an activist of the former Belgrade "Otpor" and founder of "Canvas", and the book is his "Blueprint for Revolution" from 2017, which was also studied by the Syrians who managed to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, while it also had an influence in Georgia and Ukraine, Egypt, and Lebanon.
AFP writes that the arrested Ingabir is the president of the "Development and Freedom for All" party (Dalfa-Umurinzi) which is not recognized by the authorities. The party is the successor to the former United Democratic Forces-FDU party, which was banned. She faces charges of criminal association and public incitement to oppose the government, the Rwandan Bureau of Investigation said.
The bureau said it had opened an investigation against her as a measure to implement the High Court's ruling in the ongoing trial of Sivan Siboman, former FDU secretary general, and his associates, so that she too could be tried. No other details were given.
Ingabir, 56, denied the charges against her at a hearing on Thursday.
Although she said she knew some of the defendants in the Siboman trial, she pointed out that the trial was attempting to connect events that had nothing to do with each other.
She was already in prison for claiming in 2010 that it was necessary to remember not only the victims of the Tutsi genocide, but also the victims of the Hutu people in order for true reconciliation to occur in Rwanda.
She was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but the president pardoned her after eight years, and the ban on participating in elections remained in effect.
In March 2024, she lost her appeal to lift that ban so she could participate in the presidential election.
President Kagame (2024) was re-elected with 67 percent of the vote in the July 99,18 elections. He has been in power since he overthrew the extremist Hutu government in July 1994, which instigated a genocide in which, according to the UN, more than 800.000 people, mostly members of the Tutsi minority, were killed, AFP recalls.
Bonus video:
