Editing Kigali (section)

===Crime and policing===
[[File:Police car in Rwanda.jpg|thumb|Rwanda National Police car on a Kigali street|alt=View of a police car following another car on a street.]]
In common with the rest of the country, policing in Kigali is provided by the [[Rwanda National Police]] (RNP).<ref name="Our Mission and Vision">{{cite web |url=https://police.gov.rw/about-rnp/our-mission-and-vision/ |publisher=[[Rwanda National Police]] |title=Our Mission and Vision |access-date=31 December 2020}}</ref> The city falls within RNP's central division, which is headed as of 2020 by Assistant Commissioner of Police Felly Rutagerura Bahizi.<ref name="Our Mission and Vision"/><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/230094 |work=[[The New Times (Rwanda)|The New Times]] |title=Road safety campaign taken to commercial motorcyclists |date=14 February 2018 |access-date=21 December 2020}}</ref> The United States government's [[Overseas Security Advisory Council]] (OSAC) praises the RNP's professionalism, but notes that it lacks specialist skills in dealing with policing tasks such as investigation, counter-terrorism, bomb disposal, and forensics. OSAC also notes that the RNP has limited resources on the ground, stating that police are often "unable to respond to an emergency call in a timely manner", and that police patrols are more focused on terrorism than crime.<ref name="OSAC">{{cite web |title=Rwanda 2019 Crime & Safety Report |access-date=31 December 2020 |publisher=[[Overseas Security Advisory Council]] |url=https://www.osac.gov/Country/Rwanda/Content/Detail/Report/807911aa-6005-4d1b-b795-15f4aeb96095}}</ref>

Despite this, Kigali has a reputation for being a relatively safe city. The ''[[Lonely Planet]]'' guidebook describes it as "a genuine contender for the safest capital in Africa", while Bert Archer of [[BBC Travel]] described it as "clean and safe".<ref>{{cite news |publisher=[[BBC Travel]] |title=The most inviting city in Africa? |first=Bert |last=Archer |date=6 January 2020 |access-date=31 December 2020 |url=http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200105-the-most-inviting-city-in-africa }}</ref> In a 2015 interview with ''[[The New Times (Rwanda)|The New Times]]'', then-commander of the central division Rogers Rutikanga cited "efficient operations and daily surveillance" as the means by which the city was policed. Rutikanga noted that there were crimes related to burglary, drugs, assault and robbery, as well as petty crime and pickpocketing, but that numbers were kept low through [[community policing]] and engagement with schools, businesses, municipal government and social service providers.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/186466 |work=[[The New Times (Rwanda)|The New Times]] |title=Creating a crime-free Kigali |date=1 March 2015 |access-date=21 December 2020}}</ref> In its advice to overseas visitors, OSAC states that there is a "moderate risk from crime in Kigali", but notes that such crime is rarely violent. It cites pickpocketing and petty theft as the biggest concerns for foreigners within the city.<ref name="OSAC"/> Rwanda as a whole has lower crime rates than other countries in East Africa. In 2014–15, the [[List of countries by intentional homicide rate|number of intentional homicides per 100,000 people]] was 2.52 in the country, compared with 11.52 for Uganda, 6.95 for Tanzania, 4.79 for Kenya, and 4.52 for Burundi.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://dataunodc.un.org/crime/intentional-homicide-victims |title=Intentional Homicide Victims |publisher=[[United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime]] |access-date=31 December 2020}}</ref>

Although the constitution allows [[freedom of assembly]], with protests and demonstrations allowed with a permit, such gatherings in Rwanda are rare. The US political freedom research institute [[Freedom House]] states that fear of arrest serves as a deterrent for most such protests, and that the police often disperse protests even when they have official permission.<ref name="OSAC"/><ref>{{cite web |publisher=[[Freedom House]] |title=Freedom in the World 2020: Rwanda |access-date=31 December 2020 |url=https://freedomhouse.org/country/rwanda/freedom-world/2020}}</ref> Those gatherings which do take place are mostly peaceful and crime-free. OSAC's report assesses the city's terrorism risk as "minimal".<ref name="OSAC"/>