Aimable Karasira, a former university lecturer and prominent YouTube critic of Rwanda's government, died on 7 May in a hospital in Kigali, the capital, on the very day he was due to be released from prison. His death has prompted widespread calls for an independent investigation from human rights organisations and legal experts.

Rwandan authorities say Karasira died of a drug overdose, with the Rwanda Correctional Service stating he had "consumed more than the recommended amount of medication prescribed by his doctor." Prison spokesperson Hillary Sengabo said Karasira had already received his release documents and was waiting inside the prison compound for his family to collect him when he allegedly took the overdose of his prescribed mental health medication in public view. He was transferred to Nyarugenge Hospital in Kigali, where he died. His lawyer, Félicien Gashema, told news agency AFP he was "shocked" by the death, saying his client had appeared in good spirits just two days earlier, ahead of his expected release.

Karasira, who identified as a survivor of Rwanda's 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, had used his YouTube channel to openly criticise the government of President Paul Kagame. He accused soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army — the armed movement that ended the genocide and later became the national military — of killing members of his own family in the chaos that followed the genocide. He was arrested in 2021 and held for years before the Nyanza High Court sentenced him in September 2025 to five years in prison on charges of "inciting divisions."

Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists have both called for an independent inquiry, citing allegations of torture that Karasira made during his detention. Human Rights Watch said Kigali bore the burden of proving he had not been unlawfully killed, adding that "the Rwandan government has a well-established track record of evading its obligation to ensure transparent and independent investigations into the deaths of detainees and high-profile political critics in state custody." Rwandan lawyer and political analyst Louis Gitinywa described the death as "a stain on the reputation of government."

Rights groups have drawn comparisons to the 2020 death of Kizito Mihigo, a singer and government critic who died in a police cell just four days after being arrested while allegedly attempting to flee the country. Authorities ruled that death a suicide. The Rwanda Correctional Service said it is awaiting a full medical report to determine the official cause of Karasira's death, but for critics and human rights advocates, the circumstances raise questions that an internal inquiry is unlikely to answer.