Overview
- Aimable Karasira, a university lecturer and outspoken government critic, died Wednesday in Kigali in what prison officials called an overdose of his prescribed medicine.
- Rwanda Correctional Service said he ingested large amounts after completing pre-release steps and died at Nyarugenge District Hospital, with a post-mortem report pending.
- Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists called for an independent, expert-led investigation and said the state must prove he was not unlawfully killed.
- Karasira was arrested in 2021 over YouTube commentary and later convicted in 2025 of inciting divisions, while acquitted on genocide denial charges that prosecutors were appealing as his five-year term neared its end.
- His death echoes the still-unresolved 2020 custody death of singer Kizito Mihigo and has renewed scrutiny of how Rwanda uses genocide-related laws and detention practices against government critics.