Journalists from The Guardian, Financial Times and The Mirror were among those excluded by the Home Office on the mid-April press trip, restricting their ability to scrutinise a significant development in British foreign policy.
Among those excluded was Rajeev Syal, the Guardian’s home affairs editor, who had previously reported extensively on bullying allegations against Patel. Other home affairs specialists did accompany Patel on the trip. The Guardian said: “We are concerned that Home Office officials are deliberately excluding specific journalists from key briefings and engagements.”
The Financial Times told Press Gazette: “On this occasion our journalists were excluded from the press trip and received minimal briefing. It is clearly not good practice to exclude some media from government meetings simply because they are willing to ask difficult questions.”
Index understands it is not the first time journalists have been blacklisted by the Home Office in this way. Only a select group of reporters was invited on a trip Priti Patel made in November 2021 to Washington DC to discuss terrorism and the global migration crisis with Alejandro Mayorkas, US secretary of homeland security.
The government’s controversial scheme will see migrants who arrive in small boats after crossing the English Channel flown 4,000 miles to Rwanda to have their claims processed; in her speech in Rwanda, Patel said 28,000 migrants crossed the Channel this way in 2021.
Migrants will be encouraged to relocate to the African country. Patel said, “Those who are resettled will be given support, including up to five years of training to help with integration, accommodation, and healthcare, so that they can resettle and thrive.”
Opponents of the scheme have questioned Rwanda’s record on human rights and free expression. Journalists working in Rwanda operate under a strict accreditation system and criticism of President Paul Kagame is off limits.
In March, Human Rights Watch said Rwanda did not match up to international standards of free speech and warned of a wave of arrests of Rwandan journalists and commentators: “Judicial authorities in Rwanda, lacking the independence to stand up and protect free speech in accordance with international law, have unjustly convicted and jailed people based on their protected speech and opinions,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
The first legal challenge to the Rwanda scheme was launched last week on behalf of an Iranian asylum seeker. Lawyers argue the proposals breach international law, the UN refugee convention and British data protection legislation.
In her speech in Rwanda, Patel said, “This agreement fully complies with all international and national law, and as part of this ground-breaking agreement, the UK is making a substantial investment in the economic development of Rwanda.”
The Home Office has denied targeting certain journalists and says it adheres the UK’s Government Communication Service Propriety Guidance in dealing with the media.
The Council of Europe was founded after World War II to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of rule across the continent. It is committed to upholding the European Convention on Human Rights.
The British government will be asked to provide a formal response to the alert, although it has a poor record in this regard, responding to just 10 per cent of the alerts filed in 2021.
Flowers at the Rwandan Genocide Memorial in Kigali Photo: Shutterstock
April 2014 marks the twenty year commemoration of the Rwandan Genocide that saw over one million Rwandans killed in less than one hundred days. The genocide demonstrated, in brutal terms, how societal divisions could be politicised, and ultimately militarised, to reach political ends. But in the years that have followed, the peace that has emerged is one defined by consolidated state control.
There are reasons to be optimistic. As well as the 2012 revision of the Access to Information law and the softening of the ‘genocide ideology’ legislation, in 2013 the Media Law was reformed. One key improvement is the recognition of self-regulation, as opposed to state-led control, as the primary regulatory framework for media houses and journalists, as well as a number of steps to present the media as both a professional and inclusive entity. These are bold steps forward to both enable and strengthen the media’s capacity to hold the state to account.
The reforms, however, left a number of key restrictions intact. Both Freedom House and Article 19 comment on the continued existence of requiring state approval for the launching of new outlets, as well as state-led definitions of legal duties required of journalists. Concerning the latter, Article 19 goes on to state that there is “a lack of clarity in the law about exactly who will enforce these obligations.”
When it comes to analysing both the events and legacy of 1994, the state remains prominent. Freedom House, in their 2013 Freedom on the Net summary, identified that the “Government-run Media High Council systematically monitors all print and broadcast media coverage during the country’s annual genocide mourning period every April.” We will have to wait and see if this occurs in 2014, but the state apparatus appears flexible and fluid enough to adapt quickly to the changing face of journalism – Freedom House noted that April 2012 marked the advent of online and social media monitoring.
In the monitoring report from 2012, the Media High Council, while praising the media as a whole for its coverage of the commemoration, singled out BBC Gahuzamiryango, stating it “[disseminated] genocide ideological issues” with content such as:
I recognize the Genocide against Tutsi, and I pay tribute to killed Hutu as well; yet, they only commemorate Tutsi.”
The legacy of the genocide, while affecting every community – many Hutus were among those killed, no one was truly left untouched – is a narrative defined and controlled by the state.
One of the main aspects that enabled violence to spread across Rwanda so quickly in 1994 was how perceived divisions between Tutsis and Hutus could be co-opted by state mechanisms, militias, elders, community leaders and the media. But does a centralised state-led narrative, strengthened in part by the criminalisation of genocide ideology, confront this divisionism or, in fact, does it pit free speech and the legacy of the genocide at odds with each other?
Prior to these reforms, journalists and media outlets have faced a range of punitive measures, including fines, incarceration and, at times, violence – in 2012, a radio presenter was incarcerated for 3 months for mixing up the Kinyarwanda terms for “victims” with that of “survivors”. While the reforms go some distance to protect journalists and media outlets, the true test of these reforms lie in how the relationship between media bodies and the state is to be reconfigured.
There have been well-documented disappearances, attacks and assassinations of prominent Rwandan journalists, civil society leaders and opposition-leaders in exile. While there is limited evidence directly implicating the Rwandan state, key officials have made statements regarding the fate of a number of these targets. In January 2014, this message was posted on the official twitter account of the Rwandan presidency, after the assassination of Patrick Karegeya, former head of Rwanda’s external intelligence services:
Those who criticize Rwanda know how far they go to protect their own nation.
This nexus between ‘criticism’ and national security, illuminating the ghost of 1994, offers a dangerous precedent for journalists and media houses. Criticism cannot divide the state and the media. If the move towards self-regulation is to fulfil its promise, the reform’s implementation is of utmost importance. Instead of feeling the need to be protected from the state, to be able to properly hold the state to account, the media needs to feel protected by the state.
No community was left unaffected by the events of 1994. Indeed its lingering effect is still felt across the entire region. These reforms are a positive step forward, empowering the media to take an active role in building dialogue and facilitating debate on the events and legacy of 1994. But as self-regulation establishes a foothold, how the state reacts to it will determine the true nature of media freedom in Rwanda for this year’s commemoration and all those that follow.
From America to Azerbaijan, leaders have pledged themselves to a new era of openness and transparency. So why are whistleblowers and journalists still punished, asks Mike Harris
Is Barack Obama committed to transparency? (pic Gonçalo Silva/Demotix)
A Rwandan community radio presenter is being held in pre-trial detention for “minimising” the 1994 Tutsi genocide. Habarugira Epaphrodite was arrested last month after confusing the Kinyarwanda words for “victims” and “survivors” whilst reading a news report on ceremonies to mark the 18th anniversary of the genocide on 22 April. The error made it sound as though Epaphrodite condoned the genocide. The presenter was fired from the radio station the following day, and was arrested on 24 April. He has been held in prison since his arrest.
