Thousands of places of worship shut down in Rwanda
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00More than 8,000 churches and mosques have been shut down in Rwanda this month for not meeting health and safety standards.
00:06Nearly most of them have the country's places of worship and have been found in, to be,
00:13violation of several regulations. The first major crackdown since a law tightening up operations was brought in five years ago.
00:19Clermont de Roma brings us more from Kigali.
00:22The Rwanda Governance Board announced this week that it has already closed more than 7,700 places of worship across the country in recent weeks,
00:34the majority of which are small Pentecostal churches but also several mosques.
00:39Most of the buildings constructed without adhering to national standards were deemed unsafe to host worshippers or insufficiently soundproofed.
00:49The leaders of these places must also present a degree in theology. These criteria are the result of a 2018 law.
00:59At the time, President Paul Kagame stated that the country did not need so many places of worship.
01:05Churches and mosques had five years to comply, but several thousand have failed to do so.
01:11A pastor was arrested on Tuesday for continuing to operate after the closure of his church in the eastern part of the country.
01:19Another pastor, one of the few to publicly criticise the measure, called it extreme.
01:25He went as far as describing the closures as being institutionally violent, however, retracted his statement just a few days later.