Party For Democratic Renewal
In May 2001, Bizimungu founded an opposition movement, the Party for Democratic Renewal (PDR), known as Ubuyanja in the Kinyarwanda language. It was almost immediately banned by the government, which accused it of being a radical Hutu party. Bizimingu was arrested, and Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience.
He was placed under house arrest for continuing the operations of the party on 19 April 2002 and charged with endangering the state. On 7 June 2004 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempting to form a militia, inciting violence and embezzlement. He received a five-year sentence for each of these convictions, which were to run consecutively. On 17 February 2006, Bizimungu's appeal, based on the fact that he was convicted of crimes different from those with which he was initially charged, was denied by the Supreme Court.
He was released on 6 April 2007, having been pardoned by Kagame. Kagame gave no explanation of the pardon. As of April 2011, PDR co-founder and later co-defendant Charles Ntakirutinka remained in prison, and was named an Amnesty International "priority case."
Read more about this topic: Pasteur Bizimungu
Famous quotes containing the words party, democratic and/or renewal:
“Most adults will do anything to avoid going to a party where they don’t know anyone. But for some reason we may be impatient with the young child who hesitates on the first day of school, or who recoils from the commotion of a birthday party where there are no familiar faces.”
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)
“I like Australia less and less. The hateful newness, the democratic conceit, every man a little pope of perfection.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Surrealism is not a school of poetry but a movement of liberation.... A way of rediscovering the language of innocence, a renewal of the primordial pact, poetry is the basic text, the foundation of the human order. Surrealism is revolutionary because it is a return to the beginning of all beginnings.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)