Human Rights Watch expressed on Tuesday concerns over a Rwandan asylum seeker , Cassien Ntamuhanga,who has been forcibly disappeared by Mozambique authorities.
“The Mozambican police should protect this asylum seeker, who is at serious risk of harm if returned to Rwanda,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It would be unconscionable, and a violation of international nonrefoulement obligations to hand him over to the police force of the country whose persecution he fled.”
The activist and found e of an opposition party to the Kigali regime was taken into custody by Mozambican police on May 23, 2021, but the Washington-based Human rights organization said the authorities have denied knowledge of his detention, and his whereabouts are unknown.
‘The Mozambican authorities should urgently acknowledge Ntamuhanga is in their custody, reveal his whereabouts, allow access to a lawyer, ensure that his due process rights are respected, and prevent any forced return to Rwanda’, added Leis Mudge.
Ntamuhanga was convicted in Rwanda after a higky politicized trial alongside the prominent singer and activist Kizito Mihigo, in February 2015. He escaped from prison in November 2017 and fled to Mozambique. Mihigo was pardoned in 2018 but re-arrested while trying to flee the country in February 2020, and died in a police custody in suspicious circumstances four days later.
Accord to Human Rights Watch, Mozambique’s forced return of a detained Rwandan asylum seeker to Rwanda without basic due process would violate the international legal prohibition against refoulement.
The post Mozambique: Grave Concerns for Rwandan Asylum Seeker first appeared on The African Gazette.