[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] Monday urged [HRW statement] Rwandan judges and police to investigate and stop attacks on individuals administering or testifying in local tribunals known as Gacaca courts [official website; Wikipedia backgrounder] to bring those allegedly involved in the 1994 genocide [HRW backgrounder; BBC backgrounder] to justice. In a report [text] released by the rights watchdog Monday, HRW cited the November deaths of nine individuals in retaliation for the murder of a judge's nephew and a separate murder of another judge in charge of a grassroots court. Alison Des Forges, the senior Africa advisor for HRW, said:

Killings of genocide survivors cost human lives and threaten the delivery of justice. Prompt and effective law enforcement is the way to deal with this threat, not reprisal killings. Reprisal killings have been rare in the past, but if they become more frequent, they could spur a new cycle of violence.