Inside Rwanda’s campaign to silence independent journalism

“I warned him. He didn’t leave. And now he’s dead,” said investigative journalist Samuel Baker Byansi of his late colleague, John Williams Ntwali. 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… Read more