Leopold Munyakazi's deporation to Rwanda will put his live in danger. Leopold was a French professor at Kigali Universities. He is harassed by the Rwandan government seeking to eliminate him because of his opinions. In particular because his reading of the 1994 events is different from the government version. Mobilization in his favor would save him.

Leopold Munyakazi is a Rwandan citizen living in the US since 2004 after having fled Rwanda, his native country, as the life of his whole family was threatened there.

 Upon his arrival to the US, he requested political asylum which was refused. Despite a pending appeal against the extradition requested by the Rwandan government, Leopold was arrested by US Immigration (ICE) on Friday, September 4th, 2015 and is awaiting imminent deportation to Rwanda.

 In 1994, Leopold Munyakazi was arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the rwandan authorities. After 5 years, he was released because there was no charge against him, mainly regarding his potential implication in the genocide. He was able to reintegrate a normal life and resumed work at several universities of Rwanda as a professor of French language.

 From that moment on, and as an intellectual, he faced threats and repeated harassments from rwandan government agents. These threats were increasing as time was going. This is why Leopold Munyakazi chose to seek asylum in the United States where he was attending an academic conference.

But even in the US, the harassments continued. Rumors and allegations accusing him of being a revisionist and an active participant to the genocide have been propagated against him, and the universities deans where he gave lectures have been approached to cancel his classes and lectures. Consequently, he had to resign from his academic career. Now it's been 11 years that he lives in the United States where his wife and children joined him, after they also fled.

All these destabilization and smear campaigns rely only on Leopold Munyakazi’s divergent opinions from the current rwandan government as there happens to be no other reliable reason or established case given the testimonies and evidence Leopold has been able to produce to date.

 Nevertheless, the consequence of him being sent back to Rwanda would be imprisonment and most likely torture and/or death.

We, therefore, request to the US Immigration Court, to the US Department of State, to the US president :

- To immediately suspend the process of extradition to Rwanda

- To immediately release Leopold Munyakazi.

- To grant him asylum and refugee status as soon as possible.