My experience when I was arrested by police for not properly wearing a face mask

                                                                                                             ...taken again

By Kelly Rwamapera

This is my experience while I was at Amahoro Stadium in Kigali in the hands of police on claims that I was not properly wearing my face mask, a breach of the government’s directives on the prevention of the Coronavirus.

Today is Tuesday 2 February 2021.

It is about 11 am and I’m walking by Rwanda Education Board heading to the Press House that's about a kilometre ahead, opposite Amahoro Stadium.

I turn over my right shoulder to see who is hissing and a police officer clad in his dark blue uniform with the Russian AK 47 calls me to a civilian coaster on the other side of the road.

He looks fatigued under the weight of the gun and a large uniform on him with a terrifying look that seems ready to strike as an exasperated scorpion.

His black shoes shine like a morning cobra whose black shimmer darkens the beams of the golden morning and his red eyes are heavy in their sockets.

His right-hand holds his gun with pride as the index finger is erected, pointing in the direction of the gun's long muzzle that slightly points about two feet ahead of him.

He stares at me and directs me with his head to his left as his slow-moving hand points to the entrance into the civilian coaster.

I’m aware police arrests people in such a way accusing them of violating government directives for the prevention of Coronavirus but I was wearing my mask properly.

I want to question but my pounding heart pushes me on and on until I enter the white coaster where I find about eight young men and another police officer.

I randomly sit in a free place but the officers refuse and show me where to sit as if the place has been specifically prepared for me before they found me.

My heart pounds more especially because I’m aware of an allegation against me and some other journalists that I sell stories to political dissidents who are in exile.

A fellow journalist is spying on me on the allegations but I don’t know whether this bogus claim came from the authorities or it’s the journalist who submitted my name to the authorities.

Don’t ask me how I came to know the allegation, just know that the journalist is not intelligent and I knew all his moves from himself.

I know how dangerous such an allegation is in a land of a thousand hills where each hill has a god or goddess that can strike with thunder at us who walk in the valleys below the hills.

But before I continue, let me dedicate this paragraph for apologies to those who might be or have been affected for having a relationship with a person such as me.

Back to the point, I’ve been careful not to come into contact with the authorities on any issue in a fear that it can add insults to injuries especially in Coronavirus directives that no one can be an infidel at for a single full day.

So, as I'm on this coaster, I don’t even trust the people I’ve found here because I know that even in a very natural situation can be an artificial agenda targeting someone.

It has happened to me before when I disappeared in the thin air in broad daylight while I was in a busy Kayonza Taxi Park but I’ll not talk about it because I promised not to tell the incident.

I then ask the police officer where he is taking me and why and he tells me to ask the rest on the coaster who all look at me and laugh to scorn.

I insist and he tells me that I have been arrested for not properly wearing my facemask which I dismiss right away and ask for my freedom.

He responds that my explanation is going to be heard by his superiors at the stadium.

It’s very hot inside and every one of us is sweating and the officer angrily refuses us from opening the windows while we sweat in the heat inside and he doesn’t tell us why we’re not allowed to open the windows.

I keep silent as I sweat after all for the last one year, since the announcement of Coronavirus, the country is ruled on directives from above that ordinary people cannot question whatsoever.

The police officer is at his front window, majestically inspecting the people outside to notice anyone in breach of government directives like a hunting eagle inspects the jungle for prey.

The coaster stops and he alights, shuts us inside to melt in the hotness while the few people outside disappear as if they see it insecure to be in the presence of this extended arm of security.

He returns without a “catch” and we proceed.

I then call the police spokesperson and explain to him that I have been arrested for allegedly not properly wearing the facemask when I was properly wearing it.

The Spokesperson dismisses my claims arguing that police cannot make such a mistake and that anyone can argue like the way I’m arguing.

His words sound like omens of danger to me like a quote from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart comes: “Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that there is something behind it”

I don’t know what happens but I always find myself in poetic language especially in a situation when I'm excited about my country, beliefs or a lovely woman.

As we approached the gate of the stadium, I remember the history of the Roman Empire and the dangerous games in their Colosseum, and lines poetry come into my mind:

The gatekeepers make ajar the grand Roman Colosseum

To let in numberless of grieved slaves and vilest offenders

To find demise at Gladiators' swords n the watch of the diadem;

Chariots take them into the valleys, a feast for scavengers.

At the stadium (around 11:30 am)

The coaster parks before entrance number 18 and several police officers are standing here as well as two soldiers and one of them resembles my former student.

Several men and women in blue and two soldiers adorned in their combat, police cars, and an army motor are all there. It’s real preparation for handling the Coronavirus pandemic.

I alight out and wait for what next as the rest of the people who were in the coaster ascend the stairs into the stadium.

The police officer who has arrested me orders me to enter and I refuse. I realise his name tag bears the name E Kabahizi

I boldly make my point that unless it is for another reason, I cannot enter the stadium where mask-wear offenders are when I’m not one of them as the officers also boldly tell me that they are going to apply force.

I remove my bag from the back because I can’t remove it when handcuffed and I don’t have reason to obey, after all, there is nothing I can do to make them not do what they want to do.

The police officer E Kabahizi tells me that the person who is going to listen to me is inside the stadium which is a total blow to my argument and I accept to enter.

Into the stadium, there are about 20 arrestees and I’m directed to sit among them which I refuse, asking for the one in charge such that I can explain my case to them.

They undermine my plea and rather want to handcuff me, mentioning that I’m destined to custody somewhere.

I have mentioned that every police officer I have been meeting had a name tag but this time, an officer who has no name tag comes out raging like disturbed wasps, tires on my hands and handcuffs me.

The officer about 28 years old has strong sinewy hands and his nails seemed to be strong enough to grow as tall as a rooster’s claws.

He is about 5.80 feet and more than 60 kilogrames, folding his lips towards the teeth in rage, so serious like the equipped garrisons we see stationed in several places in Kigali and other areas.

I know that the reason this garrison has no name tag is that the Rwandan law does not blame arbitrary detention on an institution of law enforcement but individuals.

If a law enforcement officer is going to do unlawful acts, they can hide their identity such that the victim cannot pursue them although the process is also next to impossible.

I follow him to a lone place where he tethers me on an iron bar.

I start fidgeting with removing my tablet from the bag with my free left hand to take a picture of myself with handcuffs but the police officers are keeping a keen eye on me and as soon as I get out my tablet, the anonymous officer reaches out and confiscates it.

He is sure that I have taken pictures and threatens that he is going to format my tablet if I don’t remove the password for him to see.

I know that the laws do not permit such and that even if I’m to be “taken”, they cannot format a gadget because they would need to know what I do with it so I just tell him to “go ahead”

He returns and removes me from the iron bar, handcuffs both hands, and sits above the rest of the arrestees and my eyes rest on the green expanse of the football field encased in the stadium.

A feather in ink and handcuffs impediment 

The green is too good to be a prisoner of the stadium and this inspires a poem in me but the flow feels large enough to make a narrative poem of what has happened to me.

I get out my notebook and pen and begin to write how things began from when I was arrested:

And I beheld the fate of kindred’s peace

Fatigued under the blue attire and weight

Of that which smokes at a hunt with ease,

Ordering me to enter the caravan of eight.

I discover that a narrative poem would take too long to arrange on a poetic metre and rhymes and might be hard for some to understand so I switch to prose style.

But my writing is obstructed by the fact that I’m not free.

This is the second time I have been handcuffed in life in three years.

I remember when I was made to disappear from Kayonza Tax Park among a crowd like tax parks always are on a Tuesday just like today.

It was 09 May 2017 at 04:20 pm when four tall men surrounded me as I was entering a Ritco bus heading to Kabarore where I was residing.

They outflanked me on four sides and without anyone noticing, I found myself in a double cabin with dark tinted glasses whose plate number was a GR.

I had taken a picture at Rukara (ku kimodoka) in the directions of Lake Muhazi and security operatives who are probably plenty there suspected me of taking pictures of the president’s ranch that is across the lake.

It was morning and sunlight shone through the blossoming young eucalyptus trees and the large leaves of banana trees that waved in about 500 meters between the road and the tranquil lake valley.

It was so beautiful to a person like me who loves nature and I could only resist taking the picture if I knew that it was taboo. But I wasn’t aware and what I took was in the public eyes.

I won’t dwell on what transpired because I promised not to, let me return to the handcuffs which I was put on the next day as the intelligence officers drove me to Kigali.

It was around 8 am and we had reached Kabuga ka Musha from Rwamagana as you head to Kigali in a dark-tinted car.

I was sitting between two stout men in their dark blue uniform with their AK-47 guns while their superior was in front with his driver wearing civilian clothes.

He ordered that I get handcuffed as we were approaching Kabuga ka Musha which was the beginning of my tears as I sat between two 'walls' of giants, looking like a sheep among bulls.

It was my first time to have the handcuffs on me and I sobbed like a child, appealing for being taken without the handcuffs since I had been adhering all along and small among them.

The superior refused and they handcuffed me.

The road as you enter Kabuga ka Musha snakes through a dug hill and then on a steep hillside where I could view the morning mist travelling over the valley that proceeds to Lake Mugesera.

The mist in the valley seemed to be covering my hope of ever returning to my family, reflecting on how the life of one who persevered and forsook everything in pursuit of returning to his Fatherland was ending before it became an adorable life.

I felt soothed at the thought that I had done what I was capable of doing which my father failed: to return to our Fatherland and have family planted back in Rwanda.

It was my grand dream since childhood and I fulfilled it, so, even when my children are orphaned, they would survive just like thousands of other orphans that are in Rwanda.

A scam of freedom (1 pm)

My contemplation is interrupted by the police officer Dr. A Matama calls me to his desk, passing by a speaker that shouts the message of government directives on the prevention of Coronavirus.

He orders the anonymous officer to set me free but he refuses, arguing that I should first remove the password in my tablet and delete the picture they suspect that I took of myself with handcuffs.

Dr. Matama tells me that he is going to set me free after deleting the pictures.

I remove the password, trembling with the handcuffs on me, and they find no pictures and Matama leads me out of the stadium to set me free.

At the stairs, before we departed, he has a boring conversation with me about several things I can’t even listen to as my heart is far away longing for freedom and my ears loathe his delaying words.

He mentions that I might be stopped at the gate because I don’t have a receipt of Kigali City for fines of breaking the government's directives, the Rwf10,000.

I look at him as he says it and I can detect from his facial expression that he is just playing games and is not ready to leave me be free as his plump hand shows me the way to go.

I take pictures of myself going out while I imagine how I’m going to be stopped by the security guards as Matama has said.

Before I reach the security guards, they point to the stadium balcony, showing me that Matama is calling me to go be back.

I find him down the stairs on the phone as if receiving instructions from “above” about a “journalist”.

After a long time on the phone, he tells me that it is unbecoming for me to leave the rest in the stadium and therefore shows me the way back into the stadium.

I am rearrested.

He drags me into a conversation about my work as a journalist as he delays me at the balcony while he texts a message with a small phone.

His superior calls him and he tells him that he is still writing the name of the media house I work for.

I work for Kigali Law Tidings and the name is difficult for him to pronounce as well as spell. So he asks me to spell it for him as he avoids me seeing what he is texting.

Back in the stadium, I sit and continue with my writing.

The Police Spokesman calls me, asking me whether I was freed, owing to a call and a WhatsApp message I had sent him when I had just been arrested, explaining my situation.

Nothing happens after his call and the stadium shadow from the west is running faster to the east. It is becoming colder and I start to miss a jacket.

I call a journalist at the Press House to lend me a jacket as I’m not sure if I will be set free today or days later or spend the night in the stadium as it happens.

I have a lot of stuff written about my experience of the day so I do some copy and paste and got some seven-tweet thread, summarising my case and I tweet.

The police react to my tweet with a reply which is re-tweeted by the journalist who is spying on me, increasing my suspicion of being destined to where he reports about me.

I continue with my writing of the experience of the day as scores of men practice football in the playfield of course without masks and social distancing.

It beats logic but we’re used to that especially during this Coronavirus time where a citizen’s obligations to the state have been reduced to just obedience to the government directives.

One journalist who has been arrested before for breaking the government directives on Coronavirus brings the jacket and I’m warm.

Another journalist calls to convince me to delete the tweet, that it tarnishes the name of police as the institution and that I should call a certain superior police officer to ask for forgiveness.

I'm not ready to do any of what he is saying. My tweet’s subject is my experience, not the police and I have not done any wrong to apologise but for the sake of my phone battery, I accept.

He calls again, explaining that those two “simple things” will rescue me from further days in custody but I'm hungry, expecting that such a journalist should be bringing me something to eat instead.

The sun has probably disappeared and coldness engulfs the stadium.

I try to approach some of the people I found in the coaster, ask them if they would support me if I took my case to the police disciplinarian but they refuse, advising me that things are good for any Rwandan who keeps silent even in the face of injustice.

At a few minutes past 18 O’clock, Matama comes and sets us free.

We’re about ten people walking out and take the same direction.