Athletes’ jail threat
Rwandans face treason charge if they try to stay on Glitter Strip
RWANDAN athletes have been warned they face being charged with treason and thrown in jail if they try to do a runner at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
The threat comes after dozens of foreign athletes tried to stay in Australia after the 2006 Games in Melbourne and the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Fears the Gold Coast’s idyllic lifestyle could tempt its athletes to flee has prompted a stern decree from the authoritarian Rwandan Government to its 17-member team not to consider “escaping while on national duty”.
“It’s a culture of cowardism which we can’t tolerate and is compared as an act of conspiracy and treasonable against the nation,” Rwanda’s Sports and Culture Minister Julienne Uwacu told the athletes at a send-off ceremony last week, local media reported.
“It’s not professional to find anyone with intentions of escaping on national duty while competing in such competitions.”
It follows a warning from Immigration Minister Peter Dutton that overseas athletes who breach their visas would be kicked out of Australia.
Treason in Rwanda carried the death penalty before the African nation abolished capital punishment in 2007.
But dissenters against the hard line regime of Rwandan President Paul Kagame have been charged with the offence in recent years and sentenced to long stints in torrid jails.
The latest Amnesty International report says Rwanda’s clampdown on political opponents continued before and after last year’s presidential elections, which Mr Kagame won with 98.8 per cent of the vote. Unlawful killings, unresolved disappearances and “severe restrictions on freedoms of expression and association” were also rife in Rwanda, Amnesty said.
Advocacy group Human Rights Watch said security forces in Rwanda summarily killed at least 37 suspected petty offenders between April 2016 and March 2017, “in what appeared to be part of a broader strategy to spread fear, enforce order, and deter any resistance to government orders or policies”.
“Most victims were accused of stealing items such as bananas, a cow, or a motorcycle,” the watchdog said.
The Rwandan Consulate in Melbourne was unable to say yesterday whether Mr Kagame or other government officials would be attending the Games.
Rwanda, which first competed in the Games in 2010 in Delhi, is sending track and field athletes, beach volleyballers, cyclists and a para-powerlifter to the Gold Coast.
After the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, 45 athletes remained unlawfully in Australia or applied for protection visas. After the Sydney Olympics, about 145 overstayed their visas and 35 applied for asylum.
IT’S A CULTURE OF COWARDISM WHICH WE CAN’T TOLERATE AND IS ... AN ACT OF CONSPIRACY AND TREASONABLE AGAINST THE NATION