HRF mourns the suspicious death in custody of Aimable Karasira, a prominent dissident and genocide survivor who publicly held soldiers of dictator Paul Kagame’s army responsible for killing his family members in 1994. HRF is outraged that Karasira’s death occurred as he was walking out of prison after completing an unjust five-year prison sentence for peaceful dissent. Karasira should never have been in prison, and he suffered a grave injustice in which he was absurdly accused of denying the genocide that he survived. HRF holds Kagame’s regime responsible for Karasira’s death and calls for an independent international investigation.

On Wednesday, the Rwanda Correctional Services (RCS) claimed that Karasira, 48, died at Nyarugenge Hospital after overdosing on prescription medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, and poor mental health. RCS spokesperson Hillary Sengabo later claimed that Karasira took extra medication as he was being escorted out of Nyarugenge Prison, where he had just finished serving an unjust five-year sentence for his critical expression.

Karasira was arrested in May 2021 for his pointed political commentary denouncing the abuses and crimes of Kagame’s regime. He was held in pre-trial detention for four years, during which he reported being subjected to physical and psychological torture. He was convicted in September 2025 on trumped-up charges of inciting divisions.

A Tutsi, Karasira openly accused soldiers of Kagame’s Tutsi-dominated rebel army for killing members of his family in August 1994, defying a state taboo imposing silence on the ruling RPF’s mass atrocities. Despite being a Tutsi orphan, he was denied state aid for genocide survivors. Karasira earned a master’s degree in software engineering and became a full-time lecturer at the University of Rwanda until he was fired in 2020 for his political views. Meanwhile, he gained popularity as a hip hop artist and political commentator through his YouTube channel, Ukuri Mbona (The Truth as I See It), garnering more than 60,000 subscribers. He was the author of a 2022 book titled “Ndeka Undorere.”