A Human Rights Watch (HRW) employee, Clementine de Montjoye, was refused entry into Rwanda on May 13. Shortly after the incident, HRW swiftly released a report ‘denouncing’ Rwanda.

In the statement, Tirana Hassan, the HRW executive director, claimed that “Rwanda touts itself as an open and welcoming destination,” and asked Rwandan authorities to allow De Montjoye to return to Rwanda, to prove that the country’s projected openness is not just a “façade”.

For the past three decades, the New-York-based rights organization, has been relentlessly pushing a divisive agenda against the government of Rwanda.

When it comes to Rwanda, HRW is a political advocacy group and its credibility is doubted, as exposed by Richard Johnson, a retired US diplomat, in a paper titled: “The Travesty of Human Rights on Rwanda,” published in March 2013.

HRW founder Robert Bernstein accused the organization of poor research methods and relying on “witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage”. HRW is always biased in evidence-gathering.

It has a history of collaborating with the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and terrorists, citing them as its only sources. What kind of information could you expect from such people who fled the country due to criminality?

HRW has overtly become the campaign mouthpiece of the FDLR, the terrorist group formed by the remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, who after committing the genocide in Rwanda fled to then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where they were accorded a safe haven.

In 2013, Rwandan intelligence intercepted information from an FDLR commander in eastern DRC in which the commander was instructing a group of operatives to immediately inform HRW should they be suspected and or arrested. The commander supplied a HRW staff e-mail address.

In 2017, HRW accused the Rwandan Government of killing 37 people. Suddenly, several of the people it reported dead were found alive and shown to the world to see, the next morning.

In its absurd report released in October 2023, HRW claimed that it had interviewed over 150 people who fled the abuses in Rwanda, or abroad. But, questions were raised about the credibility of the individuals interviewed.

One of the sources HRW reportedly talked to is Serge Ndayizeye, who claimed that he was attacked by Rwandan authorities while attending a “Rwanda Day” event in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 2015.

HRW deliberately chose a member of a terror group, Ndayizeye, a member of RNC who runs Itahuka radio, a medium used by the anti-Rwanda government terrorist group to spew hate and propaganda.

RNC is part of a larger terrorist group, P5, operating in eastern DRC, along with FDLR. Between 2010 and 2014, RNC carried out grenade attacks in Rwanda which left more than 10 people dead and more than 400 injured.

In October 2019, the group carried out the bloodiest attack in Kinigi, Musanze District. The attackers used knives and rudimentary weapons to kill 14 innocent civilians and wound 18 others. But, outrageously, all these facts were ignored by HRW, which instead, tried to whitewash RNC as an opposition group to give credibility to their source.

Related: Which type of sources does HRW rely on for information on Rwanda?

In a sinister attempt to legitimize their next fabricated report, De Montjoye was sent in Rwanda for “independent scrutiny”. But their evil agenda was exposed.

It is just weeks before the UK government sends the first asylum seekers to Rwanda. It has reported that the first plane will take off in July.

Together with several organizations and individuals driven by political and economic interests, HRW tirelessly tried to scratch the UK-Rwanda asylum bill, alleging that Rwanda is not a safe country to send asylum seekers. 

However, HRW, which had been urging the UK government to “abandon dangerous, authoritarian Rwanda Bill,” have failed since the bill was legalized. HRW gets no other way than sending De Montjoye to Rwanda to legitimize their poisonous narrative against Rwanda and its authorities.

Rwanda is gearing up for presidential and parliamentary elections, and if past experience is anything to go by, the country will be prepared for an onslaught from supposed human rights organizations, with HRW at the forefront of what has clearly been shown to be an information and political war against Rwanda.

Any well governed nation, accords special privileges to certain groups, researchers and journalists, with intention to practice or advocate the universally accepted values and the rights of individuals, unlike HRW which is driven by toxic intentions towards Rwanda.

HRW would not be displeasured by what happened because they misused the previous access that they were granted, when they chose to distort a reality of Rwanda. So, as they usually do it, HRW can go on fabricating reports without necessarily being present in Rwanda.

Rwanda is ranked second in the most popular destinations for important meetings in 2023, according to the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) 2024 rankings. Rwanda is and will always be open to the people and organizations with good intentions, not ones with intents of downgrading the country’s efforts to development just for tarnishing its image.

It would have been wiser for HRW to look back on its actions and ask questions about how and why it got into a situation where they are not allowed to enter a nation.