125,000 prisoners "still languishing in inhuman conditions"

While the Rwandan government has taken steps to deal with the huge number of prisoners awaiting trial, it has not fulfilled pledges to release all those against whom there is no evidence or who have been unlawfully detained, Amnesty International said. "Six years after the 1994 genocide which claimed as many as one million lives in Rwanda, around 125,000 detainees are still languishing in inhuman conditions," Amnesty said in a
report, 'Rwanda: The troubled course of justice', released on Wednesday. It expressed concern that the government had introduced legal amendments repeatedly extending the period of pre-trial detention "in clear breach of international law". It said overcrowding, poor hygiene and inadequate medical care in detention continued to cause widespread disease and deaths. Meanwhile, civilians were unlawfully detained in military
custody, including men and women arrested in the DRC on charges of spying for the Congolese government, the report stated.