The day after Rwanda’s untold story was aired on the BBC for the first time it’s director John Conway came to give us a lecture on the making of the controversial documentary. Twenty years after the Rwandan genocide the documentary revealed new evidence that opposes the accepted story of what happened. In Rwanda it is illegal to challenge the story and perpetrators face incarceration for doing so.

The president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame has been heralded as the hero of the hour and attributed for putting an end to the massacre and saving his country. Now evidence shows that he may have been more instrumental in the killings then the official line states, the documentary looks into the claims that he shot down the presidential plane that sparked the killings in 1994.

The documentary also looks into war crimes committed by Kagame’s forces and allegations of human rights abuses in Rwanda today. As expected the BBC caught some flak about their right to commission the film, I for one was glad that they did and took the time to tell them so.

Directors like John Conroy show a bravery in their filmmaking and investigative journalism that pushes the boundaries and uncovers story’s that would otherwise stay hidden. It is clear that the documentary produced is tantamount to the Rwandan crime of genocide denial and yet they continued anyway.

When making documentaries like this the film makers but themselves at risk to tell the truth and act as the fourth state that is seen as the responsibility as a journalist. A watchdog over those with power and control, in this case president Kagame and this regime Rwanda.

The documentary showed footage of people searching for similar evidence before that were ran out of the country as genocide deniers and others incarcerated for questioning the official story, so John Conroy knew the risk. Some people would argue that this film should not have seen the light of day or that the BBC should not have commissioned it in the first place, and not just the Rwandan officials.

An argument could be made that when in a country you should respect the rules and laws of that country even if they seem wrong to you. If John Conroy had done this then a very informative and moving documentary would not exist and the education of its viewers on the matter would be left undone.

I believe that as long as we have journalism, journalists have a right and whats more a responsibility to investigate and bring the public stories of a controversial nature. It is in this way that we learn about ourselves as a society and our role within it. Without journalism of this kind we would be stuck telling official lines, the mouth pieces of authorities throughout the globe.