The Fondation Victoire Pour la Paix again denounces the persecutory treatment of Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza following her re-arrest in Rwanda.
Since her arrest on 19 June 2025, Victoire Ingabire has not been permitted to communicate with her family in the Netherlands or her international legal team. Her right to choose her own counsel has not been respected, as the Rwanda Bar Association has rejected her Kenyan lawyer’s application to represent her in Rwanda.
Importantly, Victoire Ingabire was arrested and is to be tried in contravention of her fundamental rights as guaranteed by the Rwandan Constitution.
Firstly, she was arrested and investigated by the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) on the instruction of the Court trying a group of eight political supporters and an independent journalist. The Court had already indicated its suspicions that Victoire Ingabire was an accomplice of these accused, even though the trial is ongoing, and summonsed her to answer its questions. This occurred notwithstanding the fact she had already been interviewed and investigated by the RIB in October and November 2021, as a result of which the Prosecution concluded there was no evidence against her.
In ordering the RIB to investigate Victoire Ingabire, making very clear its expectation that she would be charged and prosecuted, the Court has demonstrated itself to not be impartial or independent. The Court has ridden roughshod over the important principles of the separation of powers and the independence of the prosecuting authority.
Secondly, the offences with which Victoire Ingabire has been charged have already been examined by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in relation to the nine accused already on trial. One of the bases on which the Working Group found that their detention was arbitrary was that it resulted from the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of opinion and expression and assembly, as well as their right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, and thus in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Victoire Ingabire’s Rwandan lawyer filed a constitutional challenge to her prosecution and detention before the Supreme Court. While this remains pending, however, the Kicukiro Primary Court in Kigali, seized with the question of her provisional release, improperly failed to acknowledge or consider this pending litigation, and decided on 15 July 2025 to order Victoire Ingabire’s continued detention. Further, the Kicukiro Primary Court refused to engage with any of the arguments advanced by the defence in support of her provisional release. The decision refusing her bail is legally unsound and has been appealed.
Following the denial of bail the situation has worsened for Victoire Ingabire. She was transferred to Mageragere Prison and is now being held in solitary confinement, in contravention of international standards of detention.
Against this backdrop of serious human rights violations and unconstitutional behaviour by the Court and Prosecution, the decision to detain Victoire Ingabire pending trial reflects a shocking disregard for legal norms and judicial independence.
As such, the Fondation Victoire pour la Paix reiterates its call to the international community to speak out against the ongoing persecution of Victoire Ingabire and to hold the Rwandan authorities accountable for their treatment of her.
Brussels, August 1, 2025