NGO calls on new government to improve human rights

The soon-to-be-installed Rwandan government should seek to improve the country's human rights record, an independent human rights group said on Monday.

In a statement, the Rwandan League for Promotion of Human Rights (La Ligue Rwandaise pour la Promotion et la Defense des Droits de l'Homme - LIPRODHOR) called upon future members of parliament, due to be elected at the end of September and beginning of October, to push the government to ratify human rights-related conventions such as the international convention against torture and the statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC). The rights body also called on future lawmakers to amend some existing laws that it said undermined the protection of human rights in the country.

"Though the human rights record has been improving over the past years, we still have some loopholes which undermine the rights of man," the Rev Emmanuel Nsengiyumva, president of LIPRODHOR, said.

Rwanda has refused to endorse the ICC statute. It has also signed an agreement with the US government that seeks to protect US citizens from prosecution by the ICC.

LIPRODHOR also urged the government to abolish the death penalty, and to investigate and make public a report on disappearances of key political figures.

In addition to fostering the respect for freedoms of expression and speech, LIPRODHOR also called upon the in-coming Rwandan government to make reparations for victims of the country's 1994 genocide, during which some 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed.