"Sixteen years ago, President George W. Bush bestowed the nation’s highest civilian award — the Presidential Medal of Freedom — on hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, who had shielded at least 1,268 people from near-certain death during the Rwandan genocide."
The American Bar Association (ABA) was recently mentioned in a Washington Post opinion piece, "Why the Biden administration should help the hero of ‘Hotel Rwanda’," written by Tom Zoellner, co-author of Paul Rusesabagina’s memoir “An Ordinary Man.” Despite Rusesabagina’s actions (mentioned in the above quote), he was arrested last August by the Rwandan government on charges of "terrorism," which no real evidence was provided by the authorities.
The ABA's Center for Human Rights has been monitoring criminal proceedings against Paul Rusesabagina in Rwanda since September 2020 as part of the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s TrialWatch initiative. It's report, co-authored by TrialWatch expert Geoffrey Robertson QC and the ABA Center for Human Rights, details many aspects of the proceedings thus far which cause grave disquiet as to their fairness, and which may have irretrievably prejudiced the defense. Given the analysis linked here, which draws on standards established by the United Nations Human Rights Committee and African human rights bodies, the fairness of the proceedings appears to have been compromised such as to call into question any verdict convicting Mr. Rusesabagina.
To learn more about ABA CHR's TrialWatch initiative, click here.
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