Journalist murdered in Kigali

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontiers - RSF) expressed its great concern to the Rwandan government today about the murder of a local journalist in the capital, Kigali, and called for a speedy and impartial enquiry. "This killing must on no account go unpunished," said RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard in letters to Rwanda's internal security minister, Jean de Dieu Ntiruhungwa, and justice minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo, noting that during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, about 50 journalists were murdered and another in 1997. RSF learns that journalist Jean-Marie Hategekimana, of the government weekly Imvaho, was murdered on the night of 11-12 March in a bar in the Gatenga quarter of the capital along with three other people. The journalist was talking with the three, including an official of the Ibuka group of associations of genocide survivors, when two gunmen burst in and tried to rob them. They then shot them and fled. The four victims were found to be dead on arrival in hospital. There is so far no indication whether Jean-Marie Hategekimana, who was buried on 14 March, was especially targeted or was shot because he was a journalist.