Rwandan refugees in Mozambique who spoke to Human Rights Watch nearly all said
Karemangingo’s death sent a chilling warning to the community. Some even reported
embassy staff threatening them, saying that they would “end up dead like Karemangingo.”
Emmanuel Munyaneza, a former member of parliament who fled to Uganda in 2007 and
received refugee status, was found dead in Uganda in March 2022. He had in the past
been threatened by individuals he believed worked for the Rwandan government. Photos
of his body suggest that he was beaten and tied up before his death. Seleman Masiya was
murdered in his home in Mozambique in July 2022 just days after telling a friend that he
was being pressured into working for the Rwandan government. He was stabbed multiple
times in the face and neck.
Tajikistan
For over a decade, the Tajik authorities have conducted a severe and wide-ranging
crackdown on political opponents, dissidents, journalists, and human rights defenders.
Many of those targeted are members of banned political opposition groups such as Group
24 and the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). A 2015 report by Human Rights
Watch and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee uncovered a wide-ranging campaign by the
Tajik authorities to detain, imprison, and silence dissidents abroad.
In March 2015, Umarali Kuvvatov, the leader of the opposition movement known as Group
24, was shot and killed in Istanbul, Türkiye. Kuvvatov’s killing followed years of his attempts
to evade the Tajik authorities by moving abroad to various countries, including Russia, the
United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Kuvvatov told Human Rights Watch
in 2013 that the Tajik authorities had attempted to kidnap him several times, and in 2012 in
Dubai he was held in detention for 10 months facing extradition to Tajikistan. The sustained
efforts by the Tajik authorities to secure Kuvvatov’s detention and return to Tajikistan
support the claim that the Tajik authorities were involved in his later killing.
Saudi Arabia
The killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist critical of the Saudi
authorities, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, received global attention.
He entered the consulate on October 2 to obtain travel documents and then disappeared.
Over two weeks later, on October 20, the Saudi authorities confirmed that Khashoggi had
“WE WILL FIND YOU”
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