A 24-year-old woman who was arrested in Rwanda for wearing “shameful” clothing faces up to two years in jail for “public indecency”, prosecutors said Thursday.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the convict Liliane Mugabekazi was arrested on August 7 after she attended a concert by popular French musician Tayc eight days earlier, wearing a sheer dress.
“She attended the concert while wearing clothes that reveal her private parts… clothes that we call shameful,” prosecutors said, accusing her of committing a “serious crime”.
“It is on these serious grounds that we ask the court to remand Mugabekazi for 30 days.
She is suspected to have committed public indecency,” the spokesman for the prosecution, Faustin Nkusi, told AFP, adding that the court would announce on Tuesday whether she would receive bail.
In recent years many Rwandans have fallen foul of the country’s strict indecency laws.
In March, police arrested a 20-year-old woman for “public drunkenness and indecent assault” after a video of her lying on the ground in an alcoholic stupor circulated on social media.
The East African nation’s rights record has been sharply criticized by campaigners, who accuse President Paul Kagame’s government of crushing any dissent.
