U.S. Embassy Kigali
June 6, 2015
The United States Embassy shares the disappointment of the United Kingdom and the European Union Heads of Mission in Rwanda regarding the decision to extend the suspension of BBC’s Kinyarwanda service indefinitely.
As President Obama stated in April 2014, “the Rwandan genocide was neither an accident nor unavoidable. It was a deliberate and systematic effort by human beings to destroy other human beings.” The United States strongly shares the belief that remembering and recording the historical truths about these atrocities, and holding perpetrators to account, is essential to preventing their reoccurrence, but we also believe that the best way to combat any factual inaccuracies is by facilitating free and open public discourse, not shutting down media outlets.
We encourage the Rwandan Government to protect freedom of expression, the cornerstone of democracy.
