Ingabire, who leads the unregistered FDU-Inkingi opposition party, will be freed immediately along with other prisoners, including singer Kizito Mihigo, who was jailed in 2015 for plotting to kill President Paul Kagame, the ministry said in a statement The UDF-Inkingi also hope that there is a genuine process for opening

 the political space and that other actions will follow to allow the

 Rwandan people to recover all the democratic freedoms to which they

 aspire and have been struggling for, for a long time. “This is the beginning of the opening of political space in Rwanda, I hope so,” she added calling on Kagame “to release other political prisoners.”

The surprise release of 2,140 prisoners, including Ingabire and musician Kizito Mihigo, followed a cabinet meeting on Friday at which a presidential order of “mercy” was approved. Among them are Kizito Mihigo and Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who received a Presidential commutation of the remainder of their sentences, following their most recent requests for clemency in June 2018," the ministry posted on Twitter. Long sentences

The opposition, ethnic Hutu leader, Ingabire has been in jail since 2010 when she returned from exile in the Netherlands to run for president. Another opposition politician, Diane Rwigara, who sought to challenge for the presidency in 2017, was blocked by the electoral commission and subsequently arrested and charged with treason. Ingabire, an ethnic Hutu, was accused of "genocide ideology" and "divisionism" after publicly questioning the government narrative of the 1994 genocide of mostly Tutsi people that killed around 800,000 people.
Victoire Ingabire, Kizito Mihigo, and 2,138 other prisoners are released in an unexpected move by the Rwandan government.