Rwanda Media Sustainability Index (MSI)
March 14, 2012
About the MSI
IREX designed the MSI to measure the strength and viability of any country's media sector. The MSI considers all the factors that contribute to a media system—the quality of journalism, effectiveness of management, the legal environment supporting freedom of the press, and more—to arrive at scores on a scale ranging between 0 and 4. These scores represent the strength of the media sector components and can be analyzed over time to chart progress (or regression) within a country. Additionally, countries or regions may be compared to one another. IREX currently conducts the MSI in 80 countries, and began studying Africa in 2006.
MSI Overview | Africa | Asia | Europe & Eurasia | Middle East & North Africa
Download Complete Rwanda Chapter (PDF): 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2006/7 | 2006/7 (français)
MSI Rwanda-2010 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 1.81
The year 2010 was a difficult one for the media in Rwanda as presidential elections fomented a crackdown on opposition voices. One journalist was shot dead in broad daylight by gunmen who have been neither arrested nor prosecuted.
Jean Leonard Rugambage was deputy editor-in-chief at Omuvugizi, a tabloid that was the government’s most outspoken critic until it was suspended by the country’s Media High Council in April, shortly before he was killed. His editor, Jean Bosco Gasasira, is in exile in Uganda for fear of assassination by
Rwanda operatives.
More than five journalists were arrested and charged with criminal libel on government orders, and some of them were handed down suspended sentences by the court. These include Didas Gasan, Richard Kaigamba, and Charles Kabonero (Umuseso) and Gasasira John Bosco (Umuvugizi) for libel. The Media High Council also shut down two popular private newspapers—Umuseso and Umuvugizi—the day after the president denounced them in a public speech with the justification that they may lead the country into trouble.
Several media outlets were blacklisted from covering state or public functions before the election, a ban that is still in place. Surprisingly, not a single media association, not even the Association of Rwandan Journalists, now becoming a trade union, spoke out to defend the media houses that were closed and
condemn government action. The deteriorating safety situation has led some journalists to flee to neighboring countries, where they have begun online outlets. Journalists contend that the government will tolerate only positive stories and that anything critical is judged to be reckless reporting and its authors are persecuted. Opposition candidates have faced similar treatment.
Though some journalists believe that media freedom has improved in Rwanda since 1997 and hope that the situation will continue to improve, many journalists and human-rights activists say that if the government continues to move in its current direction, Rwanda is likely to join other African countries where repressive regimes have silenced all independent voices.
“The government is using our historical problem to deliberately suppress the media, and from what is going on now we don’t see any hope of the situation getting better,” concluded one panelist who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.
