The military government in Burkina Faso, on November 21, 2023, adopted a new law that empowers the President to choose the head of the country’s media regulatory body in what has been widely condemned as threat to the independence of the media and safety of journalists in the strife-torn country.

Under the previous law, the President of the CSC was elected by his fellow councillors.

The law governing the powers, composition, organisation and functioning of the Conseil supérieur de la communication (CSC) was unanimously adopted by the Assemblée législative de Transition (ALT), the transitional parliament.

Besides granting the Head of State the power to appoint the President of the CSC, the new law allows for the Vice President to be also appointed by decree upon the recommendation of the Conseil superieur de la communications. This provision is captured under Article 34.

These, among other changes to the law on the media regulatory body, have raised major concerns about their impact on press freedom, freedom of expression, and the independence of the regulatory body.

“November 21 is a dark day for the Burkinabe media, marking a serious step backward,” lamented Aboubacar Sanfo, Deputy Secretary General of the Syndicat Autonome des Travailleurs de l’Information et de la Culture (SYNATIC), referring to the adoption of this new media law.

Another alarming development is the broadening of the CSC’s powers, allowing it to monitor social media accounts, particularly Facebook, and pages with at least 5,000 followers.

Regarding this social media oversight, Boureima Ouédraogo, General Secretary of the Norbert-Zongo investigative journalism unit, expressed concern that the law lumps media professionals, social media influencers and bloggers together under the same regulatory framework.

Moreover, Article 55 grants the CSC the authority to seize equipment and close down media houses, while Article 63), allows the regulator to order suspension of broadcast activities, and to temporarily or permanently withdraw press cards.

Minister of Communication, Jean-Emmanuel Ouédraogo unwittingly confirmed that through the new law, the government is seeking to impose submissive journalism.

“Journalists have nothing to worry about, as long as they work in compliance with the regulations and that, of course, their work does not damage the reputation of individuals who may undermine national cohesion, and that their work does not carry the seeds of crisis,” the spokesperson for the junta said.

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) believes that the provisions of the new law give the government powerful tools to further influence the media landscape and restrict freedom of expression in Burkina Faso. The law must be reviewed for the following reasons:

• The power granted to the Head of State to directly appoint the chairman of the CSC gives the government direct control over the regulatory body. This process allows the government to install a person favourable to its interests, thereby compromising the independence of the CSC.
• The CSC’s powers to monitor Facebook accounts and pages with a certain number of subscribers provides the government with a means of surveillance on online discussions. This could be used to restrict freedom of expression on digital platforms by targeting individuals or groups critical of the government.
• The power to suspend, shut down a media house or seize its equipment without recourse to judicial oversight can be abused. It is our contention that even if a media house is found by the CSC to have flouted the law, the regulator’s recourse to these extreme sanctions provided under law must be subject to judicial oversight. This is in order to avoid abuses targeted at critical media houses, and in particular, subjecting seized digital equipment to forensic search which could compromise the privacy of its users.
• The power granted to the CSC to permanently withdraw a journalist’s press card is untenable, as such an action amounts to stripping the victim of right to practice as a journalist.

The MFWA is extremely disappointed with the new arrangement and shares the concerns of the media in Burkina Faso. We therefore call on the Burkinabe authorities to address these concerns, by reviewing the law to truly guarantee the independence and freedom of the media. In this regard, we call for constructive dialogue between the government and media stakeholders on the issue.

The post Media freedom under threat in Burkina Faso appeared first on IFEX.

The Administrative Court of Ouagadougou has rejected a petition by a group of civilians against a conscription order aimed at forcibly enlisting them (the petitioners) into combat units of the armed forces.

The court’s ruling follows an urgent petition filed by three conscripts, including journalist Issaka Lingani, a regular columnist on the political show “Presse Echos” on BF1 TV, as well as activists and bloggers Rasmané Zinaba and Bassirou Badjo of the movement Le Balai citoyen, seeking a stay of enforcement of their conscription order.

On November 2, 2023, the military government issued an order to conscript into the army a dozen Burkinabè, including journalists Issaka Lingani and Yacouba Ladji Bama, a politician, blogger-activists, opinion leaders from civil society organisations and trade unions. The conscription orders called for them to “participate in operations to secure the national territory” within the armed forces.

The lawyers for the petitioners argued that the conscription orders lacked valid grounds, and were arbitrary and punitive in nature. However, the Administrative Court, citing Article 50 of Law N°01-2016/AN of April 26, 2016, rejected the conscripts’ application on substantive grounds. The said article specifies that an application for the suspension of orders may not be granted when the contested decision is related to public order, security, peace or health.

Despite the court’s decision, the conscripts have not joined military operations, where they were supposed to report since November 7, 2023. Lawyers for the petitioners declared that they would appeal the decision.

Earlier in March 2023, the authorities forcibly conscripted Boukaré Ouédraogo, leader of the Appel de Kaya movement. Mr Ouédraogo, who is visually impaired, was deployed to the frontline after he criticized the war efforts at a press conference in Kaya on March 16, 2023.

It is apparent that the conscription is targeted at the junta’s critics and has as principal objective to silence them and future dissenters. The MFWA is therefore disappointed at the Administrative Court’s decision and calls on the Burkinabe authorities to immediately revoke the conscription orders.

The post Ougadougou court upholds forced conscription of journalists and critics appeared first on IFEX.

The military junta in Burkina Faso has suspended both the print and online channels of the French news outlet Jeune Afrique, making the fourth suspension of a French media outlet in less than a year. The junta’s action is allegedly in response to Jeune Afrique’s coverage, which the Burkinabe authorities claim, seeks to “discredit the military”.

In a statement dated September 25, 2023, and signed by the Minister of Communication and Government Spokesman, Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo, the junta accused Jeune Afrique of deliberately making baseless claims with the sole aim of “discrediting, in an unacceptable manner, the National Armed Forces and, by extension, all those fighting selflessly to protect the sovereignty and dignity of our people in the free land of Burkina Faso”.

The government further accused Jeune Afrique of propagating falsehoods and engaging in grotesque manipulation, in disregard of the ethics of journalism. The junta accused the media outlet of aligning with clandestine organizations seeking to sow chaos in Burkina Faso to further their nefarious goals.

The junta’s accusations and its decision, thereof, to suspend all distribution platforms of Jeune Afrique in Burkina Faso until further notice, is in response to a series of publications by the French media about alleged discontent among the military.

The government specifically cited a September 25, 2023 article which had a title that suggested that there were some tensions within the ranks of the army. The said article followed a previous one on the same theme.

Meanwhile, Jeune Afrique has denounced the Burkinabe authorities’ decision as an outdated type of censorship, and called on the authorities to reconsider it.

“The suspension until further notice of all Jeune Afrique channels in Burkina Faso, on September 25 by the transitional Burkinabe authorities following the publication on our site of articles reporting tensions and differences of opinion within the army, is yet another attack on freedom of information in the country of Norbert Zongo” Jeune Afrique said in a publication on their website. It also said that Burkina Faso is becoming a “no-information zone.”

Founded in 1960 and based in France, Jeune Afrique is a website and monthly magazine with several correspondents and contributors in Africa and elsewhere.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is deeply concerned about the arbitrary suspension of Jeune Afrique, and urges the junta to reconsider its decision. The mandate to decide what publication breaches ethical standards rests with the media regulator. By deciding to suspend the media organization, the government is acting as a complainant and a judge.”

The post Military junta in Burkina Faso suspends 4th media outlet this year appeared first on IFEX.

Authorities in Benin and Burkina Faso must immediately lift their respective suspensions of La Gazette du Golfe and Radio Oméga, and allow the media to report without fear on regional politics, including the coup in Niger, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

On August 8, Benin’s High Authority for Audiovisual and Communication, or HAAC, which regulates the country’s communications sector, indefinitely suspended operations of the privately owned press group La Gazette du Golfe, including its TV, radio, print, and online outlets, according to a copy of the decision and two of the group’s staff members, who spoke with CPJ and requested anonymity for safety reasons.

Separately, on August 10, Burkina Faso suspended “until further notice” the privately owned outlet Radio Oméga, according to a statement by the government’s information service and a member of the broadcaster’s staff, who spoke with CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing security concerns.

Both suspensions stem from the outlets’ coverage of the recent coup in Niger.

“Authorities in Benin should reverse their suspension of La Gazette du Golfe, and Burkina Faso authorities should also lift their suspension of Radio Oméga at once,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in Durban, South Africa. “Journalists should be free to provide information about political developments in West Africa, such as regional responses to the coup in Niger, without fear of reprisal.”

In its decision, the HAAC accused La Gazette du Golfe of failing to respect the regulator’s August 3 statement telling the media to “scrupulously respect constitutional and legal provisions” when dealing with information condoning coups in Africa and the region.

When contacted via messaging app, HAAC Secretary-General Julien Pierre Akpaki said he was traveling and could not respond to questions because he did not have reliable internet. Another HAAC representative told CPJ by phone that the suspension of La Gazette du Golfe was related to its August 8 broadcastcriticizing possible military intervention in Niger by neighboring states. That representative requested anonymity because they were not allowed to make public comments.

Benin has offered to contribute troops if the Economic Community of West African States uses military force to reinstate Niger President Mohamed Bazoum, who was ousted by soldiers on July 26. Niger’s new military rulers said Mondaythat they planned to prosecute Bazoum for treason.

Burkina Faso’s official government information service said that authorities suspended Radio Oméga over an August 10 interview with Ousmane Abdoul Moumouni, a spokesperson for Niger’s Council of Resistance for the Republic, which was established to reinstate Bazoum. The statement described Moumouni’s interview as “peppered with insulting remarks against the new Nigerien authorities.”

Burkina Faso, which had two coups in 2022, has warned that it would regard military intervention to reinstate Bazoum as “a declaration of war” against itself as well.

Radio Oméga said in a statement that the state security department of the police summoned and questioned the outlet’s editor-in-chief, Abdoul Fhatave Tiemtoré, on August 11 about his interview with Moumouni. The police held Tiemtoré for several hours before allowing him to leave.

Radio Oméga condemned the suspension as “unfair and unfounded” and said the decision followed “numerous death threats” against its staff by people claiming to support Burkina Faso’s government and calling for the broadcaster to be suspended.

CPJ previously documented threats by government supporters against Radio Oméga reporter Lamine Traoré over his coverage of a meeting between Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traoré and civil society organizations.

CPJ did not receive responses to phone calls and an email sent to Burkina Faso’s government spokesperson, or text messages sent to Fidèle Tamini, general secretary of Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Communication.

The post Media outlets in Benin and Burkina Faso suspended appeared first on IFEX.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the use of a bogus media network to wage a smear campaign against two French journalists who were recently expelled from Burkina Faso and three Burkinabé colleagues. This use of disinformation to intimidate journalists is the latest escalation in attempts to muzzle reliable and independent reporting in Burkina Faso, RSF says.

The campaign against Libération’s Agnès Faivre, Le Monde’s Sophie Douce and the three  Burkinabé journalists – Lamine Traoré of Radio Oméga, Hyacinthe Sanou of Studio Yafa and FasoCheck, and Boukary Ouoba of the Burkina Journalists’ Association – is being waged by bogus sites affiliated to the Pan-African Group for Trade and Investment (GPCI).

The smear campaign was launched five days after Libération published an investigation on 27 March about the murders of children and adolescents in the north of Burkina Faso in which members of its army were implicated.

“The appearance of this content using spurious grounds to smear local and foreign journalists is the latest example of how press freedom is declining week after week in Burkina Faso. This campaign, which seeks to discredit and intimidate independent reporting, threatens the work and safety of the targeted journalists and all media personnel. The authorities should protect them and should participate in the fight against disinformation so that journalists can work without risk of reprisals.”

Sadibou Marong, the head of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau

Disinformation campaign targeting Libération and Le Monde

At the core of the campaign is a two-minute video that was released on 1 April by a GPCI-created media outlet calling itself Wadjey’s TV and was circulated on social media and via WhatsApp groups with the aim of discrediting the Libération report by journalists Célian Macé, Alexandre Horn and Matteo Maillard.

The video accuses the French authorities and the Research for Development Institute (IRD) of providing the journalists with “large sums of money to be used to pay leaders of the Fulani community to make false statements.” It was on the evening of 1 April that Faivre was told she had 24 hours to leave the country. Douce was given the same message the next day.

But even before 27 March, the day the Libération report was published, several GPCI websites had begun attacking Libération and Le Monde, accusing them of being “paid and recruited by France to destabilise Burkina Faso,” as CCB TV News wrote on its Facebook page.

Targeting Burkinabé journalists

The three Burkinabé journalists – Traoré, Sanou and Ouoba – were accused of abetting Libération and Le Monde.

“This is the third time in a few months that I’ve been subjected to threats or intimidation,” Traoré said. “I had to stop working for several days,” he said. Deploring the failure of the authorities to condemn these press freedom violations, he added: “We had very little public support. Some journalistic organisations issued a press release on 13 April denouncing the threats against us but no one spoke out on an individual basis. There were no statements of messages from the government on this subject.”

Valdez Onanina, the head of Africa Check’s Dakar-based French-language bureau, said such campaigns highlight the challenge facing organisations that combat disinformation. “Our fact-checking units must now do more than just check facts,” he said. “We need to pay more attention to the mechanisms behind the production and dissemination of false information in order to better understand and combat it.”

Wagner ally in charge

All of the websites identified as having participated in this smear campaign are affiliated to the GPCI, according to a Libération investigation published on 13 April.

Run by Ivorian lobbyist Harouna Douamba, the GPCI is notorious for its role in influence trafficking and disinformation, especially in Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Morocco and the Central African Republic. Facebook shut down its pages but its tentacles grow again quickly and replacement pages have already appeared. Meanwhile, the GPCI-affiliated sites that carried the false information are still active.

This is not Douamba’s first venture. It was Douamba who, in 2011, created ANA (an acronym of Aimons notre Afrique – Let’s Love Our Africa), an association linked to the ANAcom network that was behind several media disinformation operations and smear campaigns targeting France and UN entities, mainly in the Central African Republic. They had the clear aim of supporting the CAR government and the pro-Russian influence policies pursued by the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, which was one of ANAcom’s sources of funding. Facebook eventually banned the group and its 21 online outlets, according to All Eyes on Wagner.

This smear campaign and the lies about journalists being circulated massively online are new examples of the problems covered in a report that RSF published on 3 April about the significant decline in press freedom in the Sahel.

The post Burkinabé and French journalists targeted in sophisticated smear campaign appeared first on IFEX.

The junta in Burkina Faso has expelled Agnès Faivre, a correspondent for Liberation and Sophie Douce of Le Monde Afrique newspapers, accusing the journalists of “tarnishing the image of the country.”

The authorities cited a March 27, 2023 investigation story by Liberation on a video in which at least one soldier was seen executing a juvenile. The video also showed the bodies of other juveniles lying on the ground in a military barracks.

The newspaper did not show the video itself “in view of its shocking nature and out of respect for the dignity of the victims,” the editors explained in the story.

“The government strongly condemns these manipulations disguised as journalism to tarnish the image of the country,” Burkina Faso’s government spokesman Jean-Emmanuel Ouédraogo wrote in an April 1, 2023 statement announcing the expulsion.

The previous day, (March 31, 2023), the two were summoned to the state security office and interrogated.

“The officers interrogated us on our work, our sources and our Burkinabé contacts and on the story that Liberation published concerning the video,” Agnès Faivre told RFI.

Later in the evening of the same day, some national security operatives went to the home of Sophie Douce of Le Monde Afrique to give her notice to quit the country within 24 hours.

In the morning of the following day, Agnès Faivre of Liberation received a similar visit and the same order. The two journalists left Burkina Faso on April 1, 2023.

Le Monde said it “condemns in the strongest terms this arbitrary decision to force the two journalists to leave Ouagadougou in less than twenty-four hours. Sophie Douce, just like her sister colleague practises for Le Monde Afrique, independent journalism devoid of any pressure.”

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) condemns the expulsion of Douce and Faivre for doing their work as journalists. The action undermines the authority of the Superior Council for Communication (CSC), the media regulator with a mandate to monitor and sanction inappropriate content. This usurpation of the CSC’s mandate is unhealthy for press freedom and dangerous for freedom of expression in general in Burkina Faso.

We call on the Burkinabé authorities to rescind the decision as well as the recent suspension of France 24, also without recourse to the CSC. We also call on the leadership of the media regulator to assert themselves and resist the usurpation of their functions by the junta.

The post French correspondents expelled by Burkina Faso government appeared first on IFEX.

The military government in Burkina Faso has suspended French broadcaster France 24 for interviewing a leading member of a jihadi rebel group. 

The suspension was announced in a statement dated March 27, 2023, and signed by government spokesman, Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo. 

“The government is saddened to see that the head of a terrorist organization like AQIM and recognized as such by the entire international community can be offered the editorial generosity of France 24 to talk at length on the channel’s airwaves,” the government said. 

“It is with regret that the government discovered two weeks ago an interview with the ‘chief of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb’ on France 24, part of the France Medias Monde group,” the statement read, adding that France 24 has given the jihadist group space to legitimise their actions. 

The French channel revealed on March 6, that it had conducted an exclusive interview with Abu Obeida Youssef al-Aanabi, the leader of AQIM, the coordinating organisation of the most active extremist groups operating in the Sahel region. The media outlet however denies putting him on TV. 

“The channel has never invited him to speak directly on its programmes, and has simply reported his words in the form of a column, ensuring the necessary distance and context,” the French channel responded in a statement. 

France 24 has therefore rejected the accusations of professionalism and expressed disappointment with the Burkinabé authorities’ decision. 

It is the second time in four months that the Burkina Faso authorities have targeted a French media organisation. The junta suspended Radio France Internationale (RFI) in December 2022, also on accusations of lending its platform to a “terrorist chief” to intimidate the country. 

Military coups and armed insurgency have combined to throw Burkina Faso into a spiral of political and social crisis that has greatly curtailed civil rights in the country. The authorities have become oversensitive to criticism and taken a number of repressive measures against the media, particularly the foreign press. The same situation prevails in neighbouring Mali, also beset with the same security and political crises. Like Burkina Faso, Mali has suspended RFI and France 24. 

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is disappointed with the decision of the Burkinabé government and calls on it to revoke the suspension of France 24. The media outlet did not air the interview live or recorded it. It only discussed the issues raised in the interview with the AQIM leader, without glorifying the AQIM leader or his actions. 

The post Burkina Faso suspends “France 24” appeared first on IFEX.

Lamine Traoré, a reporter with the privately owned Radio Oméga, and Ahmed Newton Barry, former editor-in-chief of the privately owned newspaper L’Evènement, received separate, anonymous threats via WhatsApp groups in early December 2022, according to press reports and both journalists, who are based in Burkina Faso and spoke to CPJ by phone.

Traoré, who also is a correspondent for U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America, told CPJ that the threats against him related to a December 1 radio report he produced about a meeting between Burkina Faso’s transitional president, Ibrahim Traoré, and civil society organizations.

The journalist said the media was not invited to the meeting and he did not attend, but participants informed him that the transitional president gave a speech that mentioned an attempted coup against the government. When the journalist broadcast this on Radio Oméga, government supporters began posting threats against him in WhatsApp groups, copies of which CPJ reviewed, calling for people to protest against the journalist’s work. One person claiming to be a supporter of the president made this anonymous threat: “Everyone must go out and oppose what Lamine Traoré is saying. I don’t know this man, but I think he has strange and harmful intentions … If the journalists do not play their role, we will have to hit the table. The enemies of the people, those who are able to put the people on the wrong road, like Lamine Traoré, must be corrected.”

Separately, Barry told CPJ that the threats against him followed his December 3 Facebook post explaining legal flaws in the government’s December 2022 decision to suspend French broadcaster Radio France Internationale.

In one video posted in WhatsApp groups and translated by Barry for CPJ, an anonymous person who identified as a government supporter and spoke in the widely spoken language Mooré, called on the transitional president to kill people like Barry: “I ask Captain Ibrahim Traoré to kill people like (Ahmed Newton Barry) who are not human beings but animals.”

In a December 5 statement, the Burkina Faso government expressed concern about the threats.

In June 2022, Barry also received threats, after he criticized work between the Malian government and a Russian mercenary company.

Reached by CPJ over the phone, Jean Victoire Ouédraogo, the communications director of the Burkina Faso prime minister, declined to comment and said local media groups would be better placed to comment on the threats.

The post Burkinabé journalists threatened on social media appeared first on IFEX.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is concerned about the political turmoil in Burkina Faso following a second coup d’état in the country in eight months and calls on the new leaders to uphold press freedom, freedom of expression and human rights generally.

A group of army officers seized control of state television on September 30, 2022, and announced the overthrow of military leader Paul-Henri Damiba. The storming of the premises of the national broadcaster briefly disrupted its regular programming.

In a statement read by Captain Ibrahim Traore, the group announced that it had dissolved the government, suspended the constitution and transitional charter, and closed the country’s borders indefinitely. It also announced the suspension of all political and civil society activities.

We deeply regret the suspension of political and civil society activities by the new leaders, which has led to a complete closure of the civic space in Burkina Faso. This measure, coupled with the suspension of the transitional charter, is a major setback to national and international efforts to restore constitutional order in the country.

Burkina Faso is already plagued by acute insecurity and instability from jihadist insurgency and military coups. The country suffered one of its deadliest terror attacks a week before the latest military intervention. About 11 soldiers were killed and over 50 civilians went missing in that assault.

The overthrow of Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba is the second military coup in the country in eight months. The deposed military leader seized power in January from Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who was in the second year of his second mandate as an elected president.

The coup is the latest in a contagion of military takeovers in West Africa, in what is sadly the biggest rollback of democracy in the sub-region over the past two decades. There have been two military coups in Mali while President Alpha Conde of Guinea was overthrown by his elite bodyguards in September 2021.

As an organisation that promotes press freedom across West Africa, the MFWA finds the democratic recession in the region quite disturbing. The freedom of expression environment has deteriorated in these countries with self-censorship widespread, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso. In Guinea, the civic space has been shut down. Public processions by political and social groupings have been banned. Several defiant protesters have been beaten, arrested, and killed in the past two months. The military has summoned and interrogated a number of journalists while the media regulatory body has suspended about a dozen critical journalists and a couple of media organisations.

In view of the above, we urge the new military leaders in Burkina Faso to dialogue with the leadership of the media, in recognition of the critical role it can play in the national effort to restore peace, stability and constitutional order in the country.

The post Military rulers urged to uphold media freedom appeared first on IFEX.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and its partner organisations in all the 16 countries in West Africa have expressed deep concern about the deteriorating freedom of expression environment in West Africa, especially in Burkina Faso, Mali and the rest of the Sahelian region.

The concern was raised during a virtual meeting held by the 16 organisations on August 5, 2022, to deliberate on the situation in the two countries and the rest of the region.

The safety of journalists’ conditions has become a point of high concern following recent terrorists attacks in Burkina Faso and Mali which have claimed over 270 lives. The situation has forced many journalists to either self-censor or abandon the profession.

The insurgency and the counter-insurgency in the two countries have led to a keen competition between the insurgents and the government to win the empathy and allegiance of the people. As a result, each side is hypersensitive to media reports and tends to put pressure on journalists to avoid “unfavourable” publications about them.

This has led to widespread self-censorship on the situation. Social media comments on the conflict are also heavily censored as journalists and members of the public fear being targeted as anti or pro-government, for fear of reprisals – a situation that is contributing to shrinking civic spaces in the two countries.

While professionalism requires that journalists publish only verified information, journalists in the two countries find it difficult to independently verify certain issues and dispute official statements related to the insurgency as they risk being attacked. This situation is contributing to the spread of mis/disinformation.

The regulatory environment in the two countries also does not bode well for journalism practice. For a long time, Mali has not updated its media laws. This has resulted in the use of outdated frameworks to regulate the media industry, alongside capricious decrees by the military, which has twice seized power over the past two years.

The Burkina Faso situation is quite similar to that of Mali. A number of decrees have been adopted to restrict reporting on the conflict in the country. Presently, the Burkinabe government is pushing for the prerogative to restrict liberties for a period of time. This has raised concerns about possible abuse and interference in the different sectors, including the media industry.

The precarious safety of journalists’ conditions in the two countries have come at a time when there is an escalation of freedom of expression and media rights violations in the region. In almost all the countries in the region, journalists continue to face reprisals for some of the news reports they produce. This happens both offline and online.

In some instances, journalists are picked up after reporting or commenting on an issue. There is also the practice of imposing crippling fines, as well as  surveillance.

In addition to the arbitrary arrests and detentions by state security agents, political party thugs are increasingly attacking journalists and media houses physically and also online (especially on social media). The threats, intimidations and harassment are forcing some journalists and media houses to self-censor.

In the light of these developments, the MFWA and its partner organisations are calling on the ECOWAS, the African Union (AU), and the international community to, as a matter of urgency, engage the governments of Burkina Faso and Mali and provide the needed resources and technical support to help restore democratic governance, and also fight the insurgency. The same support should be extended to other countries in the Sahelian region and the rest of the West Africa region where similar attacks have been recorded.

On our part, the MFWA and its partner organisations plan to engage more in these countries, including undertaking a mission to engage and strengthen the capacities of media stakeholders in the two countries. We also plan to strengthen the capacities of journalists and media houses on conflict-sensitive reporting, as well as safety and security measures to adopt in such a hostile environment.

We encourage all actors to support in creating an enabling environment for journalism practice in the two countries so the media can constructively contribute to the restoration of democratic governance, peace and stability inthe two countries.

This statement is jointly issued by:

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) – Ghana

International Press Centre (IPC) – Nigeria

Association Guinéenne des éditeurs de la Presse Indépendante (AGEPI) – Guinea

Regroupement de la Presse Mauritanienne (RPM) – Mauritania

Observatoire de la Liberté de la Presse, de l’Ethique et de la Déontologie (OLPED) – Côte d’Ivoire

Gambia Press Union (GPU) – The Gambia

Observatoire de la Déontologie et de l’Ethique dans les Medias (ODEM) – Benin

Syndicat des Professionnels de l’Information et de la Communication du Sénégal (SYNPICS) – Senegal

Media Reform Coordinating Group (MRCG-SL) – Sierra Leone

Sindicato De Jornalistas e Tecnicos De Comunicacao Social Guinea Bissau (SINJOTECS) – Guinea Bissau

Union des Journalistes Indépendants du Togo (UJIT) – Togo

Centre National de Presse – Norbert Zongo (CNP-NZ) – Burkina Faso

Centre for Media Studies and Peace Building (CEMESP) – Liberia

Maison de la Presse – Mali

Observatoire Nigérien Indépendant des Médias pour l’Ethique et la Déontologie (ONIMED) – Niger

Associação dos Jornalistas Cabo-verdianos (AJOC) – Cape Verde

The post Threats to journalists’ safety in Mali and Burkina Faso appeared first on IFEX.