Umuvugizi (ikinyamakuru)

Umuvugizi: The Voice of Rwanda

Umuvugizi is a Rwandan satiric news source. It is a Kinyarwanda bi-monthly newspaper and instant publishing website in both Kinyarwanda and English featuring satirical and sensational articles almost exclusively on political issues and events in Rwanda. Umuvugizi started as a highly critical newspaper but became increasingly erratic and satirical against the Rwandan government, its leadership and the president.

Together with its sister newspaper, Umuseso, the main focus of their articles was that there was going to be another genocide soon, that Rwanda was undermining the security of its neighbours, that military coups in the country were eminent and so on. It was temporarily suspended in 2010 by the Rwandan Media High Council for "inciting public disorder" and defamation in breach of the media law, and its editor was sentenced to 2 and a half years in prison by the Supreme Court on the same charges.

Since last year (2010) Umuvugizi publishes its satirical articles mostly on its website and its English page started in June 2011. Umuvugizi articles mix both fictional, imagined and real events in and about Rwanda or any world news and information and uses them to justify its claims about leadership failure in the country, conspiracies about leadership corruption, murders and attempted murders by the country's political and military leadership, calls for civil war to change the regime, instilling fear among its readers encouraging Rwandans to flee the country, dissuading Rwandan refugees from returning to their country especially those who live in Europe and the USA etc.

It prefaces all its articles as information from "credible sources". It has recently started to post fictional audio recordings on its website about assassination attempts by the government against its opponents and claims it sources the audio records and other stories from anonymous Rwandan "intelligence agents" and other sources it always does not name "for security reasons."

Umuvugizi articles capitalise on "analysis" - explaining and predicting news and events in Rwanda and never revisits its false claims when the events it tries to link to each other later prove untrue as is always the case. The reach of its current readership is not known, but the news source is ALWAYS critical of the Rwandan government and ALWAYS promotes the views and agenda of foreign and local critics, opposition groups and individuals against Rwanda, and most especially its leadership and politics. It is also not known if its Rwandan and foreign readership are aware of its highly satirical nature that is saturated with overt elements of rogue political mobilisation.