Kigali, Rwanda (PANA) – The Rwandan Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA) has suspended the broadcasts of BBC Radio programmes in national Kinyarwanda language in the country with immediate effect.
The suspension comes weeks after the British channel broadcast a new controversial documentary entitled, “Rwanda: The untold story”.
In a communiqué issued in Kigali, the Rwandan public regulatory body, said it had received complaints from the public on incitement, hatred, divisionism and denial of the genocide by BBC in the new documentary produced by BBC journalist, Jane Corbin.
Genocide denial is a crime in Rwanda.
“An investigation has been opened into those allegations, and the outcome will determine further measures to be taken,” added the official communiqué issued on Friday in Kigali.
The suspension of the broadcasts of the BBC programmes on FM radio and via satellite comes two days after thousands of demonstrators, mainly youths and women, took to the streets of Kigali to denounce the new controversial documentary.
Similarly, the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, recently questioned the partisan attitude of the British broadcaster, which, he said, wanted to “willingly discredit several authorities of the country” through the new documentary.
Speaking in the Rwandan Parliament on 14 October, President Kagame said with regard to the documentary that Rwanda and the African continent were for decades subjected to bad media coverage by several western media, with bad motives.
“The limits of the freedom of speech within the opinion of the western world remain a controversial issue, in light of the content of the documentary,” said a visibly angry President Kagame.
At least 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, died in the genocide in 1994.
The Rwanda genocide was triggered when Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed on April 6, 1994, when his plane was shot down while returning from peace talks with Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) rebels.
