Interim President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, arrives for a ceremony in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on October 8, 2022. OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP
This is a new attack on press freedom in Burkina Faso. The ruling junta announced the blocking of “all broadcast media” on the French media Jeune Afrique (newspaper, website) on Monday evening, September 25, after articles were published that raised tensions within the Burkinabé army.
For a year now, the Burkinabe regime, led by the military after two coup attempts in 2022, has temporarily or permanently suspended the broadcasts of several television and radio channels and banned correspondents from daily newspapers, especially French media.
The “interim government” has “decided with full responsibility to suspend all Jeune Afrique broadcast media in Burkina Faso from Monday, September 25th until further notice,” wrote government spokesman and Communications Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo.
The government justified its decision by spreading a “new misleading article on the website of the Jeune Afrique newspaper entitled: “In Burkina Faso, tensions still exist within the army”” published on Monday. “This publication follows a previous article in the said newspaper on the same website,” published on Thursday, in which Jeune Afrique claimed that “in Burkina Faso, discontent is growing in the barracks,” the minister added.
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According to the government, “these claims, made knowingly and without a shred of evidence, are aimed solely at unreasonably discrediting the National Armed Forces and all combatant forces.”
RFI, “Le Monde” or “Libération” are already in their sights
“The government will stand firm against any media actor who puts his pen at the service of interests alien to those of the Burkinabe people,” the press release said.
Some of those interviewed by Agence France-Presse in Ouagadougou still have access to the site, while others said they had difficulty connecting.
The decision comes almost a year after captain Ibrahim Traoré came to power in a coup, the second in eight months. In June, Burkinabe authorities announced the suspension of French broadcaster LCI for three months, after expelling correspondents from French daily Libération and Le Monde in April.
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In late March, they ordered the blocking of the France 24 television channel, after blocking in December 2022 Radio France Internationale (RFI), a French public media outlet accused of relaying messages from jihadist leaders.
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Burkina Faso also blocked the country’s most listened to national radio station, Radio Oméga, for a month between August and September. The broadcaster was accused of interviewing an opponent of the military regime in Niger, who also faced recurring jihadist attacks. This neighboring country of Burkina Faso was also the subject of a military coup last July. Burkina Faso also borders Mali, which has also been ruled by a junta since 2020
Burkina Faso has faced recurring jihadist violence since 2015, leaving more than 17,000 people dead and more than two million internally displaced.
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