Rwandan journalist Irené Mulindahabi working for a local TV station who was detained earlier this week by judicial police over distributing pornographic contents has been released from jail on unconditional bail, Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) confirmed Tuesday.
Mulindahabi was arrested earlier Monday after posting on his YouTube channel a sensitive content which are punishable by article 38 of the Cyber crime law, RIB said in statement.
The provisions of the same law states that this category of cybercrime involves one individual distributing malicious or illegal information online including distributing pornography and trafficking.
Online media landscape in Rwanda has been characterized in recent years by a rapid and chaotic increase.
Following this situation, some journalists especially from online platforms have been summoned for unprofessional behaviour by featuring sensitive stories with a simple motive to get a large
number of visitors (views) to their online platforms.
In a related development, three other journalists running online TV station known as “Iwacu” have been convincted earlier this week for their role in circulating false information on social media platforms and spreading anti-state rumour YouTube channel.
The journalists convincted are Jean Damascène Mutuyimana, Jean Baptiste Nshimiyimana and Schadrack Niyonsenga all managing for a non-registered controversial TV station running on YouTube.
Rwanda’s new cybercrimes law classifies cyber-crimes on the basis of the nature and purpose of the offence and have been broadly grouped into three categories depending upon the target of the crime.
One of the includes offences against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data and systems; content-related offences; and computer-related offences.
CU/abj/APA