Aimable Karasira, a Rwandan academic and outspoken critic of the government of President Paul Kagame, died in custody in Kigali on Wednesday, May 6 — the day he was set to be released from prison after serving four years of a five-year sentence. His death has drawn immediate calls for an independent investigation from Human Rights Watch and intensified scrutiny of the Kagame government’s treatment of political dissenters held in its prison system.
Karasira died at Nyarugenge District Hospital in the Rwandan capital, according to Rwandan authorities. Hillary Sengabo, a spokesman for the national prison system, told the government-aligned New Times newspaper that Karasira “took chunks of medicine which he had been prescribed for a preexisting condition,” describing the death as a medication overdose.
Human Rights Watch directly questioned that account. “There are many reasons to question the circumstances surrounding Aimable Karasira’s death in custody, not least the years of harassment and persecution he experienced at the hands of the authorities,” said Clémentine de Montjoye, a senior researcher with the rights group. “The government bears the burden of proving that Karasira was not unlawfully killed.” The group urged the international community to take note and called for a “body of experts” to conduct an independent probe into the death.
Karasira, who first drew government attention in 2020 when he released a YouTube video discussing the loss of family members during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and its aftermath, was arrested in 2021 and charged with several crimes including genocide denial and sowing division. He was convicted of some of those offenses and acquitted of others, according to Human Rights Watch, which has documented Karasira’s case over several years. The prosecution appealed his acquittal on multiple counts — including genocide denial and justification — and sought a 30-year sentence. That appeal was still pending at the time of his death. But because Karasira had already served four years of a five-year term while awaiting trial, he had satisfied the time requirements for release and was scheduled to leave prison on May 6.
Human Rights Watch said Karasira faced pressure from Rwandan intelligence officials and threats from unidentified individuals after his 2020 video appeared online.
Michela Wrong, a British historian and the author of a book documenting alleged crimes of the Rwandan government, said on the social platform X that Karasira “told visitors he was being beaten and tortured.” She said, “Prison eventually proved a fatal experience, as for so many in Rwanda. Now he’s supposedly died of an overdose of his prescription medicine.”
The rights group tied Karasira’s death to the 2020 death in custody of Kizito Mihigo, a Rwandan singer and government critic. Human Rights Watch said both men had a “moral authority” that resonated with the public and confounded officials.
President Kagame, whose party has governed Rwanda since the Tutsi-led rebel force he commanded stopped the 1994 genocide, has presided over a country that has won international praise for relative peace, stability, and economic growth. The government has used a tough penal code to criminalize genocide ideology and has fostered a culture of national unity, including removing ethnic identifiers from national ID cards and incorporating genocide education into school curricula. Hundreds of community reconciliation projects operate across the country, and each April the nation holds somber commemorations of the genocide’s anniversary.
But critics say Kagame has systematically eliminated political opposition. Human Rights Watch and other international monitors have documented a pattern in which opponents are jailed, flee the country, disappear, or die in murky circumstances. The group’s statement on Karasira’s death explicitly invoked that broader pattern, and the call for an independent investigation reflects what the organization described as the government’s burden to account for what happens to its critics behind bars.