There are many questions around the disappearance of the poet Innocent Bahati, whose relatives have not heard from for a year. A hundred writers from all over the world are asking President Paul Kagame to intervene to find the young man.
With our correspondent in Kigali, Laure Broulard
Among the signatories of this missive addressed to the Rwandan president : the famous Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, the Indian writer Salman Rushdie or the South African John M. Coetzee. They claim to have reason to believe that the disappearance of Innocent Bahati is linked to his writing and the social problems he evoked in his poems published on YouTube. They demand Paul Kagame’s intervention in this case.
Innocent Bahati disappeared on February 7, 2021 while traveling in Nyanza, southern Rwanda, after meeting an unidentified person in a hotel, according to the account of one of his relatives. His disappearance was notified to the authorities on February 9.
One ” pattern of mysterious disappearances »
In March, Human Rights Watch said in a report that she should be treated as a suspect, citing a ” pattern of mysterious disappearances of government critics in Rwanda “. For his part, the spokesperson for the Rwandan Bureau of Investigations assures RFI that the publication of various opinions and criticisms is a constitutional right regularly exercised by Rwandans and that the conclusions of the investigation into the disappearance of Innocent Bahati will be made public within a week or two.
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