A French court has found French-Cameroonian author Charles Onana guilty of downplaying the 1994 Rwandan genocide, marking a historic judgment under France’s genocide denial laws.
The court ordered the 60-year-old writer to pay a fine of €8,400 ($8,900; £7,000), while Damien Serieyx, his publishing director at Éditions du Toucan, was fined €5,000.
Together, they were also directed to pay €11,000 in compensation to the human rights organisations that brought the case against them.
The Paris court ruled that Onana’s writings violated France’s laws against genocide denial and incitement to hatred, stating unequivocally that “France will no longer be a haven for denialists.”
The case stemmed from Onana’s controversial 2019 book ‘Rwanda, the Truth About Operation Turquoise’. In it, the author described the claim that the Hutu government planned a genocide as “one of the biggest scams” of the 20th century.
However, the court found that the book “trivialised” and “contested” the genocide “in an outrageous manner.”
In just 100 days between April and July 1994, an estimated 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda. Ethnic Hutu extremists targeted members of the Tutsi minority and political opponents of any ethnicity.
Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe hailed the court’s decision as a “landmark ruling,” emphasising its significance in combating genocide denial.
The case against Onana and Serieyx was brought by the non-governmental organisations, Survie and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) for “publicly contesting a crime against humanity.”
Prosecution lawyer, Richard Gisagara, praised the judgment, calling it a “victory for justice that protects genocide victims and survivors.”
He noted that it was the first time individuals denying the Rwandan genocide were punished in Europe under such laws.
Onana’s lawyer, Emmanuel Pire, defended the book as a work of political science based on a decade of research. He argued that Onana did not deny the genocide or the targeting of Tutsis but sought to analyse its broader mechanisms. Both Onana and Serieyx have appealed the verdict.
Under French law, denying or minimising officially recognised genocides was a criminal offense.
This case has set a precedent for holding individuals accountable for ‘denialist’ narratives that distort historical truths and undermine the experiences of survivors.
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