Inside Rwanda’s campaign to silence independent journalism

In January 2023, John Williams Ntwali, an investigative journalist known for his independent reporting, died in what police described as a car accident. Colleagues and press freedom advocates have questioned the circumstances of his death.

Two months earlier, his friend Samuel Baker Byansi, a fellow investigative journalist and co-founder of M28 Investigates, had fled the country after a security source warned that both men had been marked for killing.

“I warned him,” Baker said. “He didn’t leave. And now he’s dead.”

In Rwanda, reporting the truth can be a high-stakes gamble. By 2022, Baker said, the “invisible red lines” of the state had tightened, and the warning signs were no longer subtle. 

Ntwali and Baker were investigating the presence of Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Rwandan government had long denied its troops were active there. They travelled to the region, interviewed former RDF soldiers, documented military operations and collected testimonies from residents.

Days after returning, Baker was arrested, denied access to a lawyer or family, and questioned about his trip, sources, and contacts.

“They knew details about the trip I hadn’t published,” he said, suggesting surveillance during the investigation.

Rwanda’s information control does not rely solely on formal censorship. Local officials and informants monitor neighbourhoods, intelligence services track reporters’ movements and communications are widely assumed to be compromised.

Other journalists who pursued sensitive investigations have died in suspicious circumstances, disappeared or been imprisoned. Poet and commentator Innocent Bahati disappeared in 2021 and has not been seen since. Three journalists from Iwacu TV, a Kinyarwanda-language independent news channel on YouTube, were detained in 2018 for allegedly spreading false information and acquitted only in 2022. 

My interviews with journalists, a lawyer and press freedom advocates inside and outside Rwanda describe a media environment shaped not only by restrictive laws, but also by surveillance, intimidation, online harassment and a system of informal controls that critics say discourages independent reporting. Their accounts, alongside findings from press freedom organisations and international investigations, offer a rare glimpse into how journalism operates under one of Africa’s most tightly managed political systems.

The cost of crossing the line

In November 2022, a security source warned that Baker, Ntwali and another colleague were marked for killing. The threat was specific and imminent. Baker decided to flee. Ntwali stayed. 

“I alerted John about the threat, but he had normalised the violence we lived under,” Baker said. “After years of arrests, interrogations and watching colleagues disappear, perhaps he had become desensitised to the danger, or perhaps he simply couldn’t imagine leaving everything behind.” Two months later, Ntwali was dead.  

“Many of us who knew John believe he was assassinated,” Baker said, for pursuing the same story that had forced him into exile. “I warned him. He didn’t leave. And now he’s dead.”

This year, Rwanda ranked 139th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. Mûthoki Mumo, Africa Programme Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), noted that Rwanda tied with Ethiopia and Niger as the fourth worst jailer of journalists in Africa according to CPJ’s 2025 Prison Census, with five journalists imprisoned as of December 2025, four of whom are YouTube-based commentators.

CPJ documented due process concerns in the cases of these jailed journalists, including prolonged pre-trial detention and reports of ill-treatment and torture. 

“Their cases demonstrate Rwanda’s continued use of broadly defined offenses such as ‘instigating divisions’ and ‘spreading rumors’ to censor and silence political speech online,” Mumo said. 

CPJ has called on Rwandan authorities to release imprisoned journalists, investigate attacks on the press, and reform legislation such as the cybercrime law, which contains provisions broad enough to criminalise legitimate reporting. This includes a clause that makes it a criminal offence to publish online content deemed to spread “rumours” or damage a person’s “credibility,” carrying a sentence of up to five years in prison, and also grants authorities broad powers to investigate and prosecute digital speech. 

A difficult past

Three decades after the 1994 genocide that killed more than one million people according to the United Nations, Rwanda is widely praised for stability and development. On paper, constitutional protections guarantee free expression. Yet journalists describe a far narrower reality. 

To Baker, it’s “either you are with us or against us”. He said control rarely relies on overt bans. Instead, authorities use economic pressure, civic education programs and networks of informants inside newsrooms. Certain topics, including criticising the president, questioning the official genocide narrative or probing Rwanda’s role in Congo, are widely understood to be off limits.

When those lines are crossed, the consequences can vary. Sometimes they are quiet. Editors kill stories, sources go silent and advertising revenue mysteriously dries up. Other times they are direct, with journalists arrested, interrogated or targeted with online harassment campaigns.

Louis Gitinywa, a Rwandan lawyer who has handled freedom of expression cases, said the country’s history shapes that environment. 

“Rwanda came from the abyss,” he said. “Thirty-one years in the life of a nation is a very small timeline to overcome the grievances and atrocities of the past.”

The role of the media in the 1994 genocide remains central to the government’s argument. Popular station Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), a radio station established in 1993 and later found by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to have been a key instrument of the genocide, broadcast ethnic propaganda and explicit calls to kill, referring to Tutsi civilians in derogatory terms and encouraging their extermination. Newspapers also published incendiary propaganda. Journalism became an instrument of violence. 

“That is the context,” Gitinywa said. “But it’s also being used as a double-edged sword, in a way to press the media and to replace any attempt to hold the state accountable.”

A limited culture of investigative journalism

After studying journalism and working in radio, Baker co-founded M28 Investigates in 2019 – short for “Muteteri 28,” named for his mother and the date of her death. The outlet sought to fill what he saw as a void of investigative reporting.

M28 Investigates has published in-depth investigations into corruption and abuse of power, including bribery and misuse of government food supplies during the COVID-19 lockdown and alleged fraud in Rwanda’s insurance sector. The outlet also contributed to the Rwanda Classified project, a cross-continental investigation into threats, suspicious deaths, and the repression of journalists, including Ntwali’s case. The reporting drew international attention within investigative circles, but also scrutiny from Rwandan authorities and powerful interests.

The gap in investigative culture was evident even in academia. University journalism programs, Baker said, barely taught investigative techniques. When he was teaching at East African University of Rwanda, students would often approach him hesitantly. 

“Is this even allowed?” they would ask. Many had been told by other lecturers that investigative journalism was impossible in Rwanda, that only “recognised institutions” were permitted to conduct investigations.

How authorities exert control

“Journalists are not just censored,” Baker said. “They’re co-opted, recruited as intelligence assets and systematically turned from watchdogs into propagandists.” The result, he added, is that most journalists learn where the red lines are not through explicit instruction, but by watching what happens to those who cross them.

Baker discovered that Rwanda’s media control operates through a sophisticated, multi-layered system, including state institutions, government-aligned regulators and private outlets owned by ruling party affiliates. 

Another aspect is the recruitment of journalists. Mandatory “civic education” sessions were held inside military barracks, where journalists were taught to align their reporting with national interests, followed by requests for meetings with police intelligence. Baker described being approached multiple times by state agents, offered money and benefits in exchange for reporting on colleagues and following official narratives. When he refused, the consequences began. 

“In my book I mention ‘Palote Hakizimana’, not a real name, whom I trusted as a close colleague and friend, turned out to be reporting on me to intelligence services,” Baker said. “This betrayal highlighted how nowhere was truly safe.”

Baker said intelligence officers paid cooperating journalists, distributing money in person and tasking them with monitoring colleagues and shaping coverage. The aim was not only to suppress stories, but to redirect journalism itself and to ensure that reporting reinforced official narratives rather than challenging them.

Gitinywa confirmed these patterns. He said the government relies on a range of laws to suppress dissent, including a 2008 law which criminalises broadly defined speech or conduct deemed to promote “genocide ideology,” and Article 194 of the penal code, which criminalises spreading false information or propaganda said to damage Rwanda’s international standing. 

“It’s so broad that basically anyone can be thrown in prison,” Gitinywa said.

Online harassment is another tool used to target dissenting voices. Baker said he experienced it firsthand after a minister in the Rwandan government publicly associated him with “Ibigarasha”, a derogatory Kinyarwanda term often used against perceived enemies of the state. Baker said the term was coined by President Paul Kagame and loosely translates to “useless cards.” Soon after, he said, government-aligned accounts flooded him with attacks online.

He added that the attacks were amplified by government-aligned journalists with large followings, which he said helped lend credibility to the harassment. He added that official accounts sometimes amplified attack posts and that, in his view,  public servants were expected to use their personal social media accounts to join the pile-on.

“They’re not spontaneous reactions but calculated efforts to discredit, intimidate, and silence journalists,” he said. He noted that users accused him of betraying his country and harming genocide survivors.

“The goal is to make you radioactive, cut off from support networks and professional relationships,” he added.

Baker said that the Rwandan government maintains what insiders call a “Social Media Brigade”, a network of paid trolls, bloggers and influencers whose purpose is to defend the government and attack its critics.

“This isn’t a conspiracy theory,” he said, adding that he had seen the organisational structure from the inside when intelligence services tried to recruit him into the network.

A question of balance

Gitinywa said Rwanda’s trauma is invoked to justify limits on dissent.

“We’re still struggling to strike the right balance between building an accountable state with a thriving media and not returning to the ghosts of the past,” he said. Politicians, he added, often argue that reopening difficult debates risks destabilisation. 

“But how do we build a sustainable society without freedom of expression and investigative journalism?” Gitinywa asked.

He acknowledged weaknesses within the media itself, saying many journalists lack formal training and sometimes cross legal lines, a reality the government uses to “send strong signals” when reporters approach sensitive topics.

Repression, he said, has evolved. 

“A decade ago it was more blunt. Now they’ve put gatekeepers in place to regulate the media.”

The result, he said, is that many of the most outspoken journalists now live in exile, publishing online with limited reach inside Rwanda.

“There’s a gap,” he said, “between what’s happening in the country and where they live.”

An international blind spot

For Baker, the frustration extends beyond Rwanda’s borders. He said the government has been equally adept at shaping its image abroad.

“The uncomfortable truth for international audiences is that Rwanda's "success story" is built partially on the silencing of voices like mine,” said Baker.

The experience of journalists covering Rwanda is not confined to those inside the country. In March 2024, the Irish journalist Sally Hayden was stopped at an airport gate in Addis Ababa as she attempted to board a flight to Kigali, Rwanda after reporting critically on the government. 

Writing afterward in The Irish Times, Hayden recounted that airline staff told her Rwandan authorities had contacted them hours earlier, instructing that she was not permitted to travel. 

“I was not allowed any further,” she wrote, recalling how her passport was held while she arranged an alternative flight. Hayden had reported in Rwanda several times before and was aware of the risks. Her account reflects a broader pattern in which restrictions on journalists are not always visible, but enforced through administrative decisions with little explanation.

Access to independent reporting inside Rwanda remains limited. Some foreign outlets continue to work from Rwanda, but coverage can be constrained by fears of losing accreditation or access. International outlets such as BBC Gahuza and Voice of America’s Radiyoyacu service continue to provide Kinyarwanda-language reporting online and across the Great Lakes region, offering audiences an alternative to state-aligned media. Rwanda suspended the BBC’s Kinyarwanda FM broadcasts in 2015 following a dispute over a documentary about the 1994 genocide, though BBC Gahuza has continued operating from outside the country through digital platforms and regional broadcasts, even as internet access remains uneven. VOA’s Kinyarwanda service also continues to operate, although broader U.S. funding cuts have raised concerns about the long-term resources available for international broadcasting.

Others describe a more diffuse form of pressure. British journalist Michela Wrong, who has written critically about President Paul Kagame and Rwanda’s political system, said she became the target of sustained online attacks after publishing a book examining the government’s pursuit of critics abroad. 

Writing in the Guardian, she described a coordinated smear campaign, involving hundreds of anonymous social media accounts, pseudonymous book reviews, petitions and accusations of “genocide denial”, a charge that carries criminal penalties in Rwanda. She said the sustained online assault left her anxious, wary of phone calls and public events, and increasingly cautious about what she discussed digitally. 

Subsequent reporting by The Guardian linked the campaign to employees of Chelgate, a UK-based reputation management firm.

The Rwanda Classified investigation reported that the government has worked with international public relations firms to manage its global image. Investigations by Forbidden Stories further reveal how the Rwandan government has built a sophisticated influence machine abroad, also using lobbyists and coordinated online campaigns to shape narratives in the West and target critics like Wrong. 

Baker said that Western governments, burdened by guilt over their failure to prevent the Rwandan genocide, are often reluctant to criticise the country’s current leadership on human rights grounds.

Gitinywa offered a more cautious view. He said governments have a right to defend their reputations and argued that some international coverage of Rwanda can be reductive.

“Paul Kagame will not live eternally in Rwanda,” he said, suggesting the country should not be defined solely through its president. Kagame, who has led Rwanda since 2000, has been a dominant figure in its post-genocide politics.

Journalism in exile

Exile has also reshaped Baker’s reporting. He relies on open-source investigations, encrypted communication and partnerships with journalists inside Rwanda. 

“I can no longer do on-the-ground reporting in Rwanda,” he said. “I can’t meet sources face-to-face in the same way, can’t feel the pulse of daily life that informs good journalism.”

The personal cost has been immense. He is separated from his wife, who remains in Rwanda and faces scrutiny because of their connection. His extended family is under surveillance, and old friends are uncertain whether maintaining contact puts them at risk. Being in exile does not guarantee safety. Rwanda’s government has pursued dissidents beyond its borders.

Surveillance can continue remotely. Investigations by media and rights groups have found that authorities have deployed spyware, including Pegasus, to target journalists and activists, reinforcing fears that communications are not secure.

Yet exile has also been liberating. Baker could finally write his book From Watchdogs to Traitors: The less you know, the more you believe, documenting the recruitment attempts, the intelligence apparatus, the systematic repression. He can speak openly about the intelligence recruitment network, the informants inside newsrooms and the apparatus of repression that would have meant arrest or worse had he named them within Rwanda. And he contributed to the Rwanda Classified investigation, continuing the work that Ntwali died pursuing.

“Every quality story published is proof that the attacks haven’t achieved their goal of silencing you,” he said. “Every truth documented, every source protected is a small victory against authoritarianism’s demand for silence.”

Baker praised the work of organisations such as Forbidden Stories, OCCRP, ZAM Magazine, CPJ and Reporters Without Borders; along with international media outlets pursuing collaborative investigations.

“They’re upholding a principle,” he said. “They’re demonstrating that journalism under repression is possible, that truth-telling won’t be completely extinguished, that regimes cannot suppress information with absolute impunity.”

That solidarity, he added, keeps hope alive for younger reporters, encourages potential sources, and sustains pressure on governments that prefer to operate in darkness.

He also described struggling with survivor’s guilt, questioning why he managed to leave when colleagues like Ntwali died, were imprisoned or disappeared. At times, he wrestles with doubt over whether he abandoned those still in Rwanda and whether he could have done more before leaving or should be taking greater risks now.

On difficult days, Baker asks if the work is worth the cost. The exile, the surveillance, the threats to his family, the professional instability, the psychological toll. He could choose a safer path in public relations or corporate communications.

“But I know what I’d be sacrificing,” he said. “Not just a profession but a sense of purpose, a belief that my work matters.” Walking away, he added, would dishonour those who risked everything and validate a strategy built on fear.

Gitinywa, still based in Rwanda, believes reform is essential. He pointed to the need to revise laws affecting media regulation, access to information and freedom of expression. 

“But if there’s no political will to enact those reforms, it’s just building on sand,” he said.

“My hope isn’t naive,” Baker said. “I don’t expect imminent transformation. Kagame has positioned himself to rule until 2034, and succession dynamics are unclear. The repressive apparatus is deeply entrenched.”

His hope is longer term. He believes persistent journalism can gradually chip away at the information monopoly, and that young reporters learning independent practices may eventually reach the critical mass required for change.

“Authoritarian regimes feel permanent while you’re living under them, but they aren’t,” Baker said.