RWANDA CRACKS DOWN ON CARTOONS.

Kigali, RWANDA:

Drawing cartoons or producing writing that "humiliates" a government official is now a crime in Rwanda.

Journalists say the law that took effect on Thursday will greatly affect work that is meant to hold public officials, including Cabinet members to account.

Defaming Rwanda's head of state, President Paul Kagame, already was illegal, bringing five to seven years in prison and a $11,000 fine.

It was not immediately clear if the law affects people who post such writings on social media.

A cartoonist who breaks the law faces up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $1500. If the cartoon targets a member of parliament or top-ranking official, the penalty doubles.

"Any person who, verbally, by gestures or threats, in writings or cartoons, humiliates a member of parliament when exercising his/her mandate, a member of the Cabinet, security officers or any other person in charge of a public service in the performance or in connection with the performance of his/her duties, commits an offence,"
the law says.

The Rwanda Journalists Association's executive secretary, Gonza Muganwa, said the group would seek legal interpretations and advise members accordingly.

"In the trade of journalism, cartoons are by nature humorous and therefore easy for leaders to perceive them negatively or as humiliating even when it's not,"
Muganwa told The Associated Press.

Rwanda also has decriminalised defamation in general, the result of years of advocacy by the media and dialogue with the government. Human rights groups have long criticised the criminalisation of media offences as aimed at suppressing independent media.

While the journalists association considers defamation a major ethical breach, Muganwa said, complaints should be handled by the media self-regulatory body or by civil means.

SOURCE: SMH.

Comments

CUBA CLAIMS CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER IS FIDEL CASTRO'S SON.

The suicide note left by Fidel Castro’s eldest son has rocked the Cuban nation this week, with the most astonishing revelation being the claim that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was his half-brother and the son of the late Fidel Castro. The handwritten note left by Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, 68, the eldest of Fidel Castro’s children, appears to confirm the longstanding rumor in Cuba that Fidel Castro fathered Justin Trudeau after a public tryst with Margaret Trudeau in 1970. “ Castro Diaz-Balart, who had been attended by a group of doctors for several months due to a state of profound depression, committed suicide this morning ,” Cubadebate website reported. The death of the high-profile government nuclear scientist, also known as “Fidelito”, or Little Fidel, because of how much he looked like his father, stunned the nation, however it is his “ explosive ” suicide note that has set tongues wagging in Havana. Amid a wide-ranging barrage of compl...

A 26-YEARS-OLD WOMAN ADOPTS 14 AFRICAN ORPHANS.

London, ENGLAND: A young British woman has become mum to a staggering 14 Tanzanian children she met after volunteering in an orphanage on her gap year. Letty McMaster, 26, was just 18 years old when a month-long trip volunteering at an orphanage in Africa changed her life forever. She ended up staying for three years to support the children she had met, and when the orphanage shut down, Letty took in nine youngsters who would have been left homeless. Seven years on, she lives with the children after becoming legal guardian to them ALL - as well as five more kids she met on the streets or at a safe house she runs. Letty McMaster. Letty, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, said: "These children are my whole life, I raise them all on my own and they keep me going through the long hours of juggling everything. "I'd always had in mind that I wanted to help street children so my family and friends weren't surprised but I never expected to end up doing all this. " I am the pa...

MINERS IN NAMIBIA DISCOVER SHIPWRECK LOADED $13 MILLION WORTH OF GOLD.

Image: Dieter Noli. Diamond miners working off the coast of Africa were beyond surprised when they discovered a 500-year-old shipwreck teeming with gold worth $13 million and other treasures. The ship, aptly named ‘Bom Jesus’ or ‘Good Jesus,’ was like a miracle to the miners. Bom Jesus was first identified and discovered by geologists working for the mining company De Beers in 2008. It was found off the coast of Namibia near Oranjemund. Image: Dieter Noli. According to experts, Bom Jesus is from the Golden era of Portuguese explorers who set sail in all directions in search of new lands to colonize. The ship left Lisbon in 1533 under the supervision of Sir Francisco de Noronha. But on its way to India, it mysteriously vanished. Before the discovery, the miners were draining an artificial salt lake. As the lake dried out, many lost ships were found at the bottom of the lake. Bom Jesus was among them, and it is considered the oldest of all ...

YOUNG GIRLS FROM INDIA, PAKISTAN & NEPAL ARE TRAFFICKED TO WORK IN KENYAN NIGHTCLUBS.

Nairobi, KENYA: Nepali beautician Sheela* did not think twice about ditching her salon job when she received a call offering seven times her salary to work as a cultural dancer at a nightclub in Kenya. It did not matter that the 23-year-old woman from a village in the Himalayan foothills had never heard of the East African nation. Or that she had no experience as a dancer, had never met the owner of the club and was not shown an employment contract. With elderly parents to care for and medical bills to clear after her brother suffered a motorcycle accident, the offer of a monthly salary of $600, with food, housing and transport costs all covered, was a no-brainer for Sheela. "[But] it was not what I expected," said Sheela, who was rescued with 11 other Nepali women from a nightclub in Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa in April where she danced on stage from 9pm to 4am getting tips from male clients. "I was told that being escorted everywhere by the ...

LETHOTO'S PRIME MINISTER FACES IMPEACHMENT MOTION OVER HIS WIFE'S ACT.

Lethoto Prime Minister Tom Thabane & The first Lady Maesaiah Thabane. Maseru, LETHOTO: Lesotho's Prime Minister Thomas Thabane is facing a motion of no confidence for allegedly allowing his wife to meddle in government affairs, as political in-fighting rocks his ruling party and threatens the breakdown of his coalition government. The motion was filed in parliament this week by a member of Thabane's own ruling All Basotho Convention (ABC), raising the possibility he will call snap elections in the tiny mountainous southern African kingdom. "We hereby move a motion that this honourable house has no confidence in a government of Lesotho led by the Prime Minister Thomas Motsoahe Thabane," read a motion filed by ABC's Motebang Koma and seconded by the main opposition Democratic Congress deputy leader, Motlalentoa Letsosa. Parliament was adjourned on Monday with no date fixed for it to sit again. While the motion did not o...

MAN MURDERED GIRLFRIEND AFTER DISCOVERING SHE HAD UNDERGONE SEX CHANGE SURGERY.

Nina Surgutskaya. Image: East West News. Kursk, RUSSIA: A Russian doctor has confessed to murdering and dismembering a woman he dated when he discovered she had undergone sex change surgery. Dr.Mikhail Tikhonov. Image: east2west news. Mikhail Tikhonov, 27, cooked some of her body parts in her oven and flushed her remains down the toilet, he told police. He had a night out with Nina Surgutskaya, 25, in Kursk, before going back to her flat, he said. The pair were having sex when he realised that she was "transexual" and had undergone surgery. He immediately strangled her on her bed and then to hide the murder, dismembered her corpse, he told police interrogators. A photo taken at the scene of the crime in Kursk. Image: east2west news. Tikhonov was detained and questioned after Nina went missing and her mother called in police to investigate. The police report into the incident said: “Nina invited him to her flat. “They continued to ...

THE HISTORIC HANDSHAKE BETWEEN KIM JONG UN & TRUMP.

SINGAPORE : President Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea shook hands at the start of their first face-to-face meeting Tuesday, a momentous step in an improbable courtship that has opened a new chapter for the world’s largest nuclear power and the most reclusive one. Tap To Watch The Video Below: Brash, impulsive leaders who only a few months ago taunted each other across a nuclear abyss, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim had set aside their threats in a gamble that for now, at least, personal diplomacy can overcome decades of distrust. In a carefully choreographed encounter, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim greeted each other in the red-carpeted reception area of a Singapore hotel built on the site of a British colonial outpost — the first time a sitting American president and North Korean leader have ever met. After photographs, the two men, alone except for their interpreters, were scheduled to meet privately to try to resolve the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear program. ...

NIGERIAN-BORN TO BE FIRST BLACK DEPUTY TREASURY SECRETARY OF U.S

Washington DC, U.S: Speaking at a Washington think tank in the summer of 2016, Adewale Adeyemo, President Barack Obama’s international economics adviser, warned about the perils of protectionism, explained how a growing Chinese economy was good for the world and talked up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal he helped negotiate that Democrats ultimately rejected. Four years later, such talk might sound out of touch with a Democratic Party that has become even more hawkish on China and increasingly wary of sprawling international trade deals. But that was not a concern for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who this week tapped Mr. Adeyemo to be deputy Treasury secretary, solidifying his team with another stalwart veteran of the Obama administration who would bring center-left economic ideas, deep experience and diversity to Mr. Biden’s top ranks. Adewale "Wally" Adeyemo (born 1981) is a Nigerian-born American attorney and political advisor serving as the first presi...

RWANDA BANS MOSQUES FROM USING LOUD SPEAKERS DURING THE CALL TO PRAYER.

Rwanda has banned mosques in the capital, Kigali, from using loudspeakers during the call to prayer. They say the calls, made five times a day, have been disturbing residents of the Nyarugenge district, home to the capital's biggest mosques. But an official from a Muslim association criticised it, saying they could instead keep the volume down. Last month, around 700 churches were closed for not complying with building regulations and noise pollution. The majority of Rwandans are Christian. Muslims make up around 5% of the population. The government says the Muslim community has complied with the ban. "I have found that they have begun to respect it and it has not stopped their followers from going to pray according to their praying time," Havuguziga Charles, a local official from Nyarugenge told the BBC's Great Lakes service. This comes as the government continues its clampdown on substandard churches across the East African country. Mo...

THREE AFRICAN MEN ARRESTED IN FRANCE FOR CANNIBALISM.

Paris, FRANCE: Three men have been arrested in the heavily migrant Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois for attacking a man by biting at his face and then eating the pieces of flesh they had bitten off. The men, who originally came from the African island of Cape Verde, were arrested on Sunday after they attacked a man who was walking in the Hector-Berlioz alley at around 6 pm and bit off his ear and lower lip, Parisienreports . The victim was able to fight off the attackers, wounding one of them in the ankle, before police arrived a short time later and arrested the three Africans. Both the victim and the injured man were then taken to Montfermeil hospital. Clichy-sous-Bois has become infamous as one of the most troubled no-go zones surrounding the French capital. The massive riots that occurred in 2005 began in the area when a pair of teenagers running from the police killed themselves by hiding in an electric power station. Since then, Clichy-sous-Bois has been ass...

Kioo17 Journal

Search This Blog