FREE VICTOIRE INGABIRE
Call for opposition leader’s immediate and unconditional release
We, the undersigned leaders, activists and defenders of democracy and human rights across Africa and beyond stand in solidarity with Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who is facing trial in Kigali on baseless charges of criminal conspiracy and inciting an uprising.
Ingabire, who has already spent eight years in jail, was re-arrested at her home on 19 June 2025. Her detention is the latest step in a drawn-out campaign of harassment and intimidation waged by the Rwandan authorities against a political activist who has always advocated peaceful change. It represents an abuse of judicial process.
Her re-arrest was carried out in the context of an ongoing trial in the Rwandan High Court against nine of Victoire Ingabire’s supporters, who are charged with plotting to overthrow the Rwandan government and spreading false information. The defendants’ “crime” appears to have been discussing ideas contained in the book Blueprint for Revolution, by Serbian activist Srdja Popovic.
Popovic’s book, which boasts the subtitle: “How to use rice pudding, Lego men, and other non-violent techniques to galvanise communities, overthrow dictators, or simply change the world” is explicitly a study of non-violent resistance. A UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has called for the defendants’ release, judging their detention a violation of their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and participation in public affairs.
Ingabire was originally arrested in 2010 on charges of terrorism and genocide denial soon after returning to Rwanda from the Netherlands to take part in the democratic process. Sentenced to 15 years in jail, she spent eight in detention – most of that time in solitary confinement– before being pardoned in 2018. The African Court on Human and People’s Rights later ruled that Rwanda had violated her rights and ordered the Rwandan government to pay reparations.
Ingabire’s prison sentence made it impossible for her to run in Rwanda’s presidential elections in 2024, removing the country’s most prominent opposition figure from a contest Kagame later claimed to have won with over 99% of the vote.
Even after her release, Ingabire was not a free person, prohibited from leaving the country without government permission and therefore separated from her three children and a gravely-ill husband in Europe. Her political party, DALFA-Umurinzi, remains unregistered.
Rwandan prosecutors are currently contesting her right to be represented in court by the lawyer of her choice, Kenyan national Emily Otieno.
“Victoire’s illegal re-arrest is another compelling example of the way in which the judiciary in Rwanda is being used as a tool to shut down all legitimate dissenting political voices,” said Kate Gibson, part of a team of international lawyers acting for Ingabire. “This is not a court case. It’s an attempt at political intimidation,” said one of Ingabire’s colleagues.
Ingabire’s re-arrest, at a time when Rwanda is under international pressure to cease military support for the M23 rebel group that has seized two provinces in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, serves as a reminder of the readiness of the administration of President Paul Kagame to systematically violate human rights both at home and beyond its borders.
Despite sanctions announced by Western donors and Rwanda’s signature of a US-mediated peace agreement, Rwandan troops remain in situ in eastern DRC and the Rwandan authorities continue to crush political debate inside the country.
The Platform for African Democrats (PAD) calls for Victoire Ingabire and her nine supporters to be immediately released, their rights recognized, and compensation paid.