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Burkina Faso has suspended the BBC and Voice of America radio networks for airing a rights report accusing the army of attacking civilians in its fight against Islamists.
The British and US broadcasters are the most recent international media organizations to be targeted since Captain Ibrahim Traore took control in the West African country in a September 2022 coup.
“The programmes of these two international radio networks broadcasting from Ouagadougou have been suspended for a period of two weeks,” Burkina’s communications authority, the CSC, said late Thursday.
It stated that the decision was made because BBC Africa and the VOA aired and published a report on their digital platforms “accusing the Burkina army of abuses against the civilian population”.
According to the CSC, the report contains “hasty and biased declarations without tangible proof against the Burkinabe army”.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday that soldiers in Burkina Faso’s jihadist-hit north massacred at least 223 civilians, including 56 children, in two retaliation attacks on February 25.
Burkinabe authorities, contacted by AFP, have not responded to the charges.
Since 2015, the country has seen attacks from Al-Qaeda and Islamic State-linked groups.
Since then, around 20,000 people have been killed in Burkina Faso, and approximately two million have been forced to evacuate their homes.
VOA stated on Friday that it had requested reactions to the HRW report “from several Burkinabe officials,” but had received no answer, and that it planned to “continue to fully and fairly cover activities in the country.”
UN ‘concerned’
The UN Human Rights Office expressed “concerned” about the suspension.
“Restrictions on media freedom and civic space must cease immediately,” spokesman Marta Hurtado said in a statement.
“Freedom of expression including the right of access to information is crucial in any society, and even more so in the context of the transition in Burkina Faso.”
The CSC stated that it had “directed” internet service providers to suspend access to BBC, VOA, and HRW websites and digital platforms from Burkinabe territory.
The BBC and VOA’s approach “undermines the cardinal principles of information processing in that it constitutes disinformation that is likely to bring discredit to the Burkinabe army” and may disrupt public order.
The CSC requested all other media outlets to refrain from publishing the item, saying that any offenders would face consequences.
Burkina Faso has already targeted several French media outlets, suspending, banning, or expelling foreign correspondents.
Traore’s junta has separated Burkina Faso from France, which formerly administered the country until 1960.
French media already suspended
In September, the junta-led government stopped the print and online operations of French media outlet Jeune Afrique in the country following the publishing of two pieces about military tensions.
In June, it halted the French TV station LCI for three months.
It also terminated all broadcasts of the France 24 news station in March 2023, a few months after Radio France Internationale (RFI) was suspended. It accused both public media sources of spreading extremist leaders’ messages.
The following month, the correspondents for the French publications Liberation and Le Monde were removed.
According to Sadibou Marong of media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the VOA and BBC bans were “abusive and constitute a flagrant violation of the right to information”.
In an email to AFP, he stated that the media outlets had merely published “information of general interest for the Burkinabe population”.
