MUSEUM 1930
Will the oldest high security prison become a museum? That is at least the project. This future museum - whose opening date is not yet known - will be installed in the buildings of the current «1930 prison» and will be devoted to the history of the country under the Belgian mandate, while the Kandt Museum is focused more on German colonization. Why 1930? For at that time many Rwandans could read the figures but not the letters and could not read the registration Gereza Ya Kigali («Kigali prison»), preferring to name it by the date of its construction, inscribed on its front. The prisoners will be transferred to the new Butamwa prison, also located in Kigali city. The idea was to draw on Robben Island where Mandela was incarcerated. Indeed, this is where Rukara Rwa Bishingwe was detained, a village chief who was executed for rebelling against colonial authority. The Rwandan Correction Service (RCS) declared the complete closure of the prison on July 1, 2018, after transferring the remaining prisoners occupying the places (mainly women) to a newly constructed prison in Butamwa, Nyarugenge district. If it is transformed into a museum, Kigali Central Prison will become the 9 th Rwanda Museum.
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