Rwanda shuts down thousands of evangelical churches
President Kagame says many churches are "just thieving," and some are just a "den of bandits."
Rwanda has closed over 10,000 evangelical churches for failing to comply with a 2018 law designed to regulate places of worship.
The law introduced new rules on health, safety, and financial disclosures and requires all preachers to have theological training.
President Paul Kagame has been vocal in his criticisms of the evangelical churches that have sprouted across the small country in Africa's Great Lakes region.
"If it were up to me, I wouldn't even reopen a single church," Kagame told a news briefing last month.
"In all the development challenges we are dealing with, the wars, our country's survival, what is the role of these churches? Are they also providing jobs? Many are just thieving; some churches are just a den of bandits," he said.
The vast majority of Rwandans are Christian, according to a 2024 census, with many now travelling long and costly distances to find places to pray.
The 2018 law requires churches to submit annual action plans stating how they align with "national values.”
All donations must be channelled through registered accounts.
‘Relic of the colonial period’
Pastor Sam Rugira, whose two church branches were shut down last year for failing to meet fire safety regulations, said the rules mostly affected new evangelical churches that have "mushroomed" in recent years.
But Kagame has described the church as a relic of the colonial period, a chapter of its history with which the country is still grappling.
"You have been deceived by the colonisers, and you let yourself be deceived," he said in November.
But some say the clampdown on places of worship is linked to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis, in which around 800,000 people were slaughtered.
Ismael Buchanan, a political science lecturer at the National University of Rwanda, said the church could sometimes act as "a conduit of recruitment" for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the Hutu militia formed in exile in DRC.
"I agree religion and faith have played a key role in healing Rwandans from the emotional and psychological wounds after the genocide, but it also makes no sense to have a church every two kilometres instead of hospitals and schools," he said.