The appeal was raised yesterday, as the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Political and Gender Affairs together with the state minister for Constitutional and Legal affairs in the Ministry of Justice, Evode Uwizeyimana started scrutinizing the draft law that seeks to amend the Penal Code.
However, The state minister for Constitutional and Legal affairs in the Ministry of Justice, Hon. Evode Uwizeyimana refuted this, saying that making the ‘genocide crime’ a specific law, would be globalizing it, while there are still some countries that don’t agree on the matter.
“What we can do is to put in place different penalties for genocide-related crimes because making ‘genocide crime’ as a specific law can be considered as globalizing it. We should remember that there are some countries that don’t agree on this matter” he explained.
MP Evaritse Kalisa highlighted the fact that Rwandans understand the crucial importance of tough penalties on genocide crime as they witnessed consequences of the genocide as a crime against humanity.
Kalisa added that on both Political and law grounds, genocidal acts should not be taken on with an easy leverage.
“We lived and saw what happened during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi; we saw the Trauma and destruction it left behind in our society. It is on these grounds that I stand on requesting that the Penalty for Genocidal crime be reviewed as a specific law with specific penalties different from genocide negation, divisionism and trivialization,” he said.
The President of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Political and Gender Affairs; MP Alfred Rwasa Kayiranga stressed too on the fact that a relevant scrutiny from the government was needed on the issue of penalties on genocide crime.
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