London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 17, 2025

Daughter of imprisoned Rwandan dissident: Governments must be ‘accountable’ for spyware use

Daughter of imprisoned Rwandan dissident: Governments must be ‘accountable’ for spyware use

Carine Kanimba, daughter of Paul Rusesabagina of ‘Hotel Rwanda’ fame, finds herself a surveillance target as she fights for her father’s release.

The youngest daughter of Paul Rusesabagina, the hotelier played by Don Cheadle in the film “Hotel Rwanda,” is in a battle to free her father and also tackling government surveillance.

Rusesabagina risked his own life to save more than 1,000 refugees as the manager of the besieged Hôtel des Mille Collines. After the Rwandan genocide, he and his family had become refugees themselves, receiving asylum in Belgium, before moving to the United States after an alleged assassination attempt.

Rusesabagina’s daughter Carine Kanimba is now back in Brussels — not by choice, but by necessity. In August 2020, her father, on a private plane he thought was headed to Burundi, was instead taken to his home country. Rwandan authorities’ elaborate abduction plot drew criticism from international organizations and governments, but Rusesabagina was tried on terrorism charges and ultimately sentenced to 25 years in prison. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have questioned the trial's validity.

Kanimba, 29, quit her job at an impact investment firm in New York to lead the #freeRusesabagina campaign, lobbying governments to pressure the Rwandan government into releasing him. (Celebrities including Cheadle have worn T-shirts in support of the campaign.)

“My father once told me that the only way to keep a political prisoner alive is to keep speaking out about them,” said Kanimba, on a damp Brussels day over a cappuccino. “That’s what my sister and I are doing — imploring lawmakers — she in Washington, and I in Europe.”

Kanimba’s advocacy work has also made her a target of Rwandan surveillance. In July 2021, Amnesty International published a report revealing that Rwandan authorities had used Israeli firm NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to track the photos, call logs, web searches and more, of more than 3,500 activists, journalists and politicians.

Among Amnesty International’s findings was that Kanimba’s phone was among those that had been targeted, between September 2020 and July 2021. In June, digital rights group CitizenLab notified Kanimba’s cousin, with whom she lives, that he had also been targeted.

“It keeps me awake at night knowing that [the Rwandan government] knew everything that I was doing,” Kanimba said to a U.S. House Intelligence Committee on commercial cyber surveillance on Wednesday. “The same government torturing my father is listening to my private calls, accessing my camera and [it] knows my location.”

The most notable incident occurred in June 2021, when Kanimba met with Sophie Wilmès, then the Belgian foreign minister. The spyware was, according to Amnesty International, reportedly triggered as soon as Kanimba entered the room and continued throughout the two-hour meeting. The two discussed the help Kanimba needed on her father’s case.

“We were discussing in private how the Belgian government could support us. Later I found out that [the Rwandan government was] in the room with us the entire time,” she said, her phone on the table during the interview.

Kanimba’s meeting with Democratic U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas to discuss her father’s case also fell within the frame of her reportedly being hacked. The revelation was one factor in Castro joining a group of lawmakers that successfully urged the U.S. Commerce Department to ban the sale of NSO Group’s products in the country.

On Wednesday, a day after Greek S&D MEP Nikos Androulakis revealed he’d been targeted by Pegasus-like spyware called Predator, Kanimba called for consequences — political or economic — for countries that abuse the use of spyware during the U.S. House committee hearing. She pointed to massive aid packages the U.S. had sent to Rwanda that could in turn be used to buy surveillance technology worth millions of dollars.

The European Parliament is looking into EU member countries’ use of commercial spyware


“We cannot just hold the technology companies accountable; we have to hold the countries who are perpetrating transnational repression on Belgian soil or U.S. soil accountable as well because we know who they are,” she said.

The European Parliament, through its Pegasus Inquiry Committee, is also looking into EU member countries’ use of commercial spyware, recently revealing that 14 EU countries had purchased Pegasus.

Kanimba, who will speak at a parliamentary hearing in August, said that while she applauds the Parliament’s efforts — both for launching the Pegasus inquiry and for adopting a near-unanimous resolution calling for the immediate release of her father — she remains discouraged by what she considers the European Commission’s inaction.

So far, she said, the Commission had repeated the Rwandan government’s official line — namely that the authorities had “remedied” any neglect or "procedural concerns" regarding her father’s imprisonment.

“The EU has consistently and repeatedly made the Rwandan authorities aware of its expectation that the rights of Mr. Rusesabagina and the co-accused to due process and fair trial be fully respected,” a Commission spokesperson told POLITICO.

The spokesperson also said that the Commission was aware of allegations that Pegasus had been used to spy on Rusesabagina’s family, but that the Rwandan government “had repeatedly denied the claim” it was involved.

Kanimba said such statements made her question to what extent the Commission will act, both in terms of her father’s imprisonment and the use of spyware to target activists and others.

“One way to prove me wrong would be to bring my father home, to call on Rwanda to let him go,” she said. “That would demonstrate that the use of this type of surveillance software is not permissible.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
U.S. Chamber Sues Trump Over $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Shenzhen Expo Spotlights China’s Quantum Step in Semiconductor Self-Reliance
China Accelerates to the Forefront in Global Nuclear Fusion Race
Yachts, Private Jets, and a Picasso Painting: Exposed as 'One of the Largest Frauds in History'
Australia’s Wedgetail Spies Aid NATO Response as Russian MiGs Breach Estonian Airspace
McGowan Urges Chalmers to Cut Spending Over Tax Hike to Close $20 Billion Budget Gap
Victoria Orders Review of Transgender Prison Placement Amid Safety Concerns for Female Inmates
U.S. Treasury Mobilises New $20 Billion Debt Facility to Stabilise Argentina
French Business Leaders Decry Budget as Macron’s Pro-Enterprise Promise Undermined
Trump Claims Modi Pledged India Would End Russian Oil Imports Amid U.S. Tariff Pressure
Surging AI Startup Valuations Fuel Bubble Concerns Among Top Investors
Australian Punter Archie Wilson Tears Up During Nebraska Press Conference, Sparking Conversation on Male Vulnerability
Australia Confirms U.S. Access to Upgraded Submarine Shipyard Under AUKUS Deal
“Firepower” Promised for Ukraine as NATO Ministers Meet — But U.S. Tomahawks Remain Undecided
Brands Confront New Dilemma as Extremists Adopt Fashion Labels
The Sydney Sweeney and Jeans Storm: “The Outcome Surpassed Our Wildest Dreams”
Erika Kirk Delivers Moving Tribute at White House as Trump Awards Charlie Presidential Medal of Freedom
British Food Influencer ‘Big John’ Detained in Australia After Visa Dispute
ScamBodia: The Chinese Fraud Empire Shielded by Cambodia’s Ruling Elite
French PM Suspends Macron’s Pension Reform Until After 2027 in Bid to Stabilize Government
Orange, Bouygues and Free Make €17 Billion Bid for Drahi’s Altice France Telecom Assets
Dutch Government Seizes Chipmaker After U.S. Presses for Removal of Chinese CEO
Bessent Accuses China of Dragging Down Global Economy Amid New Trade Curbs
U.S. Revokes Visas of Foreign Nationals Who ‘Celebrated’ Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
AI and Cybersecurity at Forefront as GITEX Global 2025 Kicks Off in Dubai
DJI Loses Appeal to Remove Pentagon’s ‘Chinese Military Company’ Label
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
×