I just hope the big guns are being fired. NBC has a history of using questionable journalistic ethics to make the news, not just cover it. Remember when they were entrapping sex offenders on the "To Catch a Predator" series? Now they've teamed up with the Rwandan government to snag so-called human rights offenders.
NBC producers and a film crew were accompanied by a Rwandan prosecutor when they tried to interview Leopold Munyakazi in his classroom at the liberal arts college December 9. They wanted to discuss charges that he participated in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. He has denied the allegations, but declined to be interviewed.
Who can blame him? Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, human rights activists and journalists have all spoken out against NBC for getting involved in the investigation just so it can broadcast a program about its efforts. Some said that the program could interfere with the work of legitimate law enforcement agencies. Others said that there is insufficient evidence of human rights violations and that ethical journalists need to act independently--not in collaboration with government officials.
Munyakazi applied for asylum in 2004. He has been arrested for overstaying his visa and faces deportation. If he is guilty of war crimes then he should be returned to Rwanda to face justice. But the made-for-television brand of justice that NBC is implementing doesn't seem like justice at all.
