Head of Rwanda radio disappears after genocide anniversary

The head of a Rwandan Christian radio station has disappeared without a trace after a ceremony commemorating the 1994 genocide, Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday, expressing concern that he may have been abducted.

The disappearance of Cassien Ntamuhanga, director of Amazing Grace Christian Radio, comes just weeks after the media watchdog condemned what it called “harassment” and “intimidation” of journalists by the Rwandan government, accusing authorities of trying to stifle independent reporting.

Ntamuhanga was last heard from on Monday evening when he left Amahoro Stadium in Kigali where a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the genocide took place and phoned his brother to tell him he would meet him in town, RSF said.

“There has been no news of him since then and his phone rings without anyone answering,” the group added.

RSF said that later that night guards saw a man suddenly parking the journalist’s car outside the radio station before quickly leaving the premises on a waiting motorbike.

“We are very disturbed by Ntamuhanga’s unexplained disappearance,” said Clea Kahn-Sriber, head of the group’s Africa desk.

“All the more since there have been unfortunate recent precedents under President (Paul) Kagame’s regime,” she said, adding: “Journalists and government opponents have mysteriously disappeared and later their bodies and cars have been found.

“The fact that his car was brought back and left outside the radio station suggests that Ntamuhanga may still be alive and is being detained,” she said.

According to RSF sources, Ntamuhanga had been questioned several times in recent weeks by military intelligence officers looking for information about one of his former colleagues who fled Rwanda in 2013 and contributes to an online opposition radio.

The media watchdog ranked Rwanda 162nd out of 180 countries in its 2014 press freedom index.