Anger After Preacher Says Women ‘Source Of Evil’; Rwanda ‘Shuts Radio For Denigrating Women’

Rights groups are horrified after a preacher said there was nothing good about women AFP

A Rwandan preacher could be hauled before the country's media regulator after calling women the source of all evil in a radio sermon.

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New Times Rwanda report continues:

Seventh Day Adventist preacher Nicolas Niyibikora told listeners "women are out of God's favour" during the broadcast on Amazing Grace radio in January, warning "there is nothing good you can find in women".

"If you've read the Bible, who brought the sin into the world?" he asked listeners, adding: "It was not a man."

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the sermon has angered rights groups, with Pro-Femme Twese Hamwe holding a press conference warning such words “can bring hatred and conflicts among Rwandans if nothing is urgently done about it”, according to Rwanda's New Times.

The women's rights group made a complaint to the regulatory body Rwanda Media Commission (RMC), which is set to meet to discuss the issue next week

Executive secretary Emmanuel Mugisha told the New Times it was likely the radio station will have to explain itself.

The Seventh Day Adventists in Rwanda have made efforts to distance themselves from Mr Niyibikora, who they say was expelled five years ago.

Rwanda ‘Shuts Radio For Denigrating Women’

Rwanda's media watchdog has ordered a three-month shut down of a US-owned Christian radio station after it broadcast a sermon against women, it told the AFP news agency.

"The sermon was denigrating women in the most vile manner," commission chief Edmund Kagire told AFP.

The radio station, Amazing Grace FM, broadcast a sermon by local pastor Nicolas Niyibikora on 29 January in which he called women dangerous, evil and against the plans of God.

The National Women's Association and the Women's Journalist Association to the Rwanda Media Commission, which oversees journalist ethics, both complained about the broadcast.

The radio station is owned by American evangelist Gregg Schoof, who said he condemned any denigration of women.