The Rwandan government has suspended all BBC radio broadcasts in Rwanda’s most common language to protest against the news organisation’s recent documentary about the 1994 genocide in the country.

President Paul Kagame’s government, members of parliament and genocide survivors have expressed their anger at the BBC over the recent documentary that suggested the country’s president may have had a hand shooting down his predecessor’s plane, a crash that triggered the mass killings.

Its hour-long documentary, Rwanda, The Untold Story, also quoted US researchers who suggested that many of the more than 800,000 Rwandans who died in the 1994 genocide may have been ethnic Hutus, and not ethnic Tutsis as the Rwandan government maintains.

Late on Friday, the Rwandan Utilities Regulatory Authority announced the suspension of the BBC’s broadcasts in the local language, Kinyarwanda. The board said it took the action because it has received complaints of “incitement, hatred, divisionism, genocide denial and revision” from the public. It said further action could be taken.

The BBC had defended the film on Friday, saying it had a “duty to investigate difficult and challenging subjects”.

Rwandan minister of foreign affairs Louise Mushikiwabo said the documentary was an “attack on Rwanda and its people” and that her government is contemplating taking action against the BBC.

A BBC spokesperson said on Friday: “We are surprised and disappointed that the Rwandan government has suspended the BBC Great Lakes Service on FM. We consider this action unwarranted and disproportionate.

“We believe Rwanda’s Untold Story, which was produced by a BBC current affairs team in London and broadcast on a domestic channel in the UK, made a valuable contribution to the understanding of the tragic history of the country and the region. The BBC strongly refutes the suggestion that any part of the programme constitutes a ‘denial of the genocide against the Tutsi.’ There are repeated references to the mass killings of Tutsis by Hutus in 1994 and that this constitutes genocide. The programme also includes an interview with the director of the Genocide Museum at Murambi, a Tutsi and genocide survivor, and a convicted Hutu genocidaire who spoke of his part in the killing of thousands of Tutsis.

“The programme makers made several requests for the Rwandan government to appear in the programme but these were declined. The BBC would continue to welcome an on air response to the programme from the Rwandan government.”

The documentary suggested that Kagame ordered the downing of the plane of former President Juvenal Habyarimana, the act that is believed to have sparked the genocide.

“My government reserves the right to respond, on its own timing, in a manner commensurate with the weight of the offence,” Mushikiwabo told Associated Press.

Earlier this week the Rwandan parliament passed a resolution to ban the BBC and to lay charges against the journalists behind the documentary.

“What we are saying is that this gross denial of the genocide and disregarding facts to trivialize our history should not go unpunished,” the president of the senate, Bernard Makuza, told AP.

The Rwandan law-makers are demanding an apology from the BBC. University students also held a protest march against the documentary.

Kagame accused the BBC of bringing together genocide revisionists in order to distort the facts about the mass killings.

The documentary quotes former Kagame allies, including former Lt Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa, who was previously an army chief of staff.

Rwanda under Kagame has no tolerance for dissent or political opposition, wrote David Mepham, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, on the organisation’s website.

“The Rwandan media is dominated by government views, and most media outlets follow the official line. Scores of Rwandan journalists have fled the country, unable to report freely and fearful for their safety,” Mepham wrote. “Kagame’s Rwanda is similarly ruthless in its treatment of political opponents.”

• This article was amended on 27 October 2014 to add a response from the BBC

