By Chinasaokwu Helen Okoro
Burkina Faso’s ruling military junta has arrested three prominent journalists, intensifying its crackdown on media freedom in the West African country, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Thursday.
Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba , the president and vice-president of the Association of Journalists of Burkina Faso, and Luc Pagbelguem of the local television channel BF1, were arrested on Monday and their whereabouts are unknown.
On March 21, the Journalists’ Association held a press conference to protest the junta’s restrictions on media freedom and called on the authorities to release the remaining detained journalists. Mr. Pagbelguem covered the press conference.
The three journalists were arrested Monday by plainclothes police and taken to an unknown location, according to HRW. The Journalists’ Association was dissolved the following day.
The arrests are part of a broader trend within the new Alliance of Sahel States (ESA), which includes Burkina Faso , Mali , and Niger . All three countries have experienced coups in the past four years, shifting their policies away from long-standing associations such as ECOWAS , the regional economic bloc, and embracing Russian security support, particularly the Wagner Group , to combat a growing jihadist insurgency in all three countries.
The AES coalition has silenced critical media outlets while continuing to promise a new path to normalcy that, so far, has actually increased the number of civilian combat deaths compared to the pre-coup security environment, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project , a U.S.-based nonprofit organization.
Burkina Faso arrested activist and journalist Idrissa Barry earlier this month, and in April last year, authorities blocked several major media outlets for reporting alleged human rights violations against civilians.
“Dozens of journalists have been forced to flee Burkina Faso under threat of imprisonment, torture, enforced disappearance and forced recruitment because of their work ,” according to the HRW report.
Following Barry’s arrest, one journalist told HRW: “I left Ouagadougou and I will not return. Free media is dead here; only government propaganda remains . “
About The Author
Leave a comment