The 1994 genocide, in which as many as 800,000 to 1 million people – a large part of the country's minority Tutsi population, along with Batwa and moderate Hutus – were killed, continued to shape Rwanda in 2010.

In marking the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem (Navi) Pillay praised Rwanda's 'remarkable progress towards gender equality', noting that more than half of parliamentarians and at least 30 per cent of post-holders in the cabinet and the courts are women (no information was available as to the ethnic breakdown of these women MPs). She commended the opening of an independent Gender Monitoring Office to promote equal opportunity.

In August serving President Paul Kagame was elected to a second seven-year term. International observers reported that the elections were peaceful, but they expressed concerns about the stifling of dissent that preceded them. Numerous media outlets were closed in the months before the polls, some of them under a 2009 law restricting media freedom. None of the main opposition parties were able to participate on polling day. Some had been obstructed from holding the meetings required to register their parties while others were blocked by the detention of their leaders, along with key journalists, under a 2008 law criminalizing 'genocide ideology'. The law, like a similar one prohibiting 'divisionism', is ostensibly intended to outlaw behaviour encouraging ethnic hatred. Both texts, however, have been criticized for impinging on freedom of expression by failing to define clearly which specific acts they penalize. While government sensitivities regarding the mention of ethnic differences are understandable given the country's recent history, its stance risks concealing discrimination against vulnerable minorities such as Batwa and women from minority groups. The government announced a review of the 'genocide ideology' law in April.

Two prominent government critics were killed in the months preceding the election, contributing to a climate of tension and fear. These were André Kagwa Rwisereka, former supporter of the party in power who left in 2009 to help found the Democratic Green Party, and journalist Jean-Leonard Rugambage, who had been investigating the attempted murder a week earlier of a former military chief-of-staff who had become an increasingly outspoken critic of the government.

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