Rwandan former journalist abducted in Mozambique

MAPUTO, Mozambique 

Men wearing Mozambican police uniforms have kidnapped a former Rwandan journalist, Ntamuhanga Cassien, who was living in exile in Mozambique, according to a report carried by Monday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”.

According to the Association of Rwandan Refugees in Mozambique (ARRM), Cassien was abducted on 23 May by eight individuals claiming to be Mozambican police agents, accompanied by a man who was supposedly a Rwandan official.

Immediately before he was seized, Cassien sent a text message to members of the Rwandan community, saying “Now my life is in danger. I am sending SOS to the God fearing nations of the earth!”

37 year old Cassien used to work as Director of the Rwandan fundamentalist Christian radio and television station “Amazing Grace”, and is well-known for his sharp criticisms of the policies followed by Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

In 2015, a Rwandan court sentenced Cassien to 25 years in prison for conspiracy against the state, and complicity in terrorism and murder. He was accused of working with the US-based opposition party, the Rwanda National Congress (RNC), the former militias involved in the 1994 genocide, and ex-Rwanda army officers who formed the FDLR rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He escaped from prison in 2017, and made his way to Mozambique where he has been living as a refugee.

On 6 May this year, he was sentenced in absentia to a further 25 years imprisonment, after he was found guilty of facilitating terrorist activities. He was allegedly financing, from exile, a plot to make bombs that would be detonated in various parts of the country. The main bomb maker, Phocas Ndayizera, told the court he had been “misled” by Cassien.

The prosecution presented Whatsapp messages between Ndayizera and Cassien, with the latter promising to pay 15,000 dollars for terrorist activities in Rwanda including blowing up electricity and water installations.

Cassien now works as a trader, and runs a shop on the island of Inhaca in the Bay of Maputo. It was in Inhaca that he was abducted.

The “Amazing Grace” radio and television station was owned by a United States national, Gregg Schoof. His licence to run a broadcasting station was revoked in April 2018, after transmitting a sermon that denigrated women, calling them “dangerous” and “evil”.

In 2019, Patrick Nyirishema, the director-general of the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA), said Schoof had repeatedly broadcast material bordering on hate speech. “His radio station hosted shows attacking Islam in Rwanda and we would call him and explain to him that it was against the law, that Rwanda espouses pluralism of faith-based organisations but he never heeded our advice”, said Nyirishema.

Schoof issued a statement in October 2019 criticising the Rwandan authorities for loosening restrictions on abortion and teaching about reproductive health in schools. “Is this government trying to send people to hell?”, Schoof’s statement asked.

He is also on record as opposing the teaching of evolution, and has accused Kagame’s government of “heathen practices”

After Schoof held what the government regarded as an illegal meeting with journalists to criticise the closure of “Amazing Grace”, he was arrested and deported to the US.

The Mozambican police say they know nothing about the kidnapping of Cassien. Hilario Lola, spokesperson for the National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic), told the Portuguese news agency Lusa that the police had no record of any complaint about the disappearance of any foreigner of any nationality.

“There is no record of any operation for the arrest of Rwandan citizens, nor have we recorded any complaints,” said Lola.

The ARRM believe that the kidnappers are working for the Rwandan government, and intend to send Cassien back to Kigali.