A Rwandan woman faces two years in prison for wearing a 'shameful' dress.
- Published By Dickens Omollo For The Statesman Digital
- 10 months ago
Prosecutors said Thursday that a 24-year-old woman arrested in Rwanda for wearing "shameful" clothing faces up to two years in prison for "public indecency."
Liliane Mugabekazi was arrested on August 7 after wearing a sheer dress to a concert by popular French musician Tayc eight days earlier.
"She is suspected of public indecency," the prosecution's spokesman, Faustin Nkusi, told AFP, adding that the court would decide whether she would be granted bail on Tuesday.
Some Rwandans were outraged by the arrest, but government officials, including former justice minister Johnston Busingye, supported it.
"The current issue of our young men and women who drink and drug themselves unconscious and appear in public literally naked is objectionable," Busingye, Rwanda's ambassador to the United Kingdom, tweeted.
"I applaud the efforts to address it."
Last week, police spokesman John Bosco Kabera condemned "immorality and indecency among young people" in a television interview.
"This problem is getting worse... you see people wearing only a shirt... no pants or shorts," he said.
"These people then go to public places dressed like that, with net-like clothes."
When asked if "such people did not have a right to dress as they pleased," he replied, "The first right is to dress well, not indecently."
Many Rwandans have fallen foul of the country's strict indecency laws in recent years.
A 20-year-old woman was arrested in March for "public drunkenness and indecent assault" after a video of her lying on the ground in an alcoholic stupor went viral on social media.
Campaigners have sharply criticized the East African country's human rights record, accusing President Paul Kagame's government of crushing any dissent.
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