APA-Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) Trade unions and human rights organisations have denounced “abuses of power” by the transitional authorities.

Two civil society leaders, Rasmane Zinaba and Bassirou Badjo of ‘Balai Citoyen’, have been requisitioned to go to the front, according to the movement’s national coordination.

Journalist Issiaka Lingani said he had received the same notes from the army.

“I am pleased to inform you that I have been requisitioned for the liberation of our country from next Tuesday. So it will be at least three months before you see me again. May God bless Burkina Faso,” said Issaka Lingani, journalist and columnist on the “Presse Echos” show on BF1 private television.

The ‘Centre National de Presse’ Norbert Zongo regretted that “for the first time, journalists are among those requisitioned,” and protested against the use of insecurity to “curb freedoms and provide cheap cover for autocratic impulses.”

The home of another journalist, Newton Ahmed Barry, was searched.

The outraged Burkina Faso Movement for Human and Peoples’ Rights (MBDHP) spoke of a “massive and targeted requisition of citizens,” including members of the collective of trade unions and civil society organisations that had announced a meeting to be held on 31 October at the Ouagadougou labour exchange, as well as journalists, opinion leaders and politicians “critical of the current management of our country’s affairs.”

The list also includes the name of Dr. Daouda Diallo, Secretary General of the Collective against Impunity and the Stigmatisation of Communities (CISC), which regularly denounces cases of kidnapping and enforced disappearance within the Fulani community.

The CISC called on the people of Burkina Faso to bear witness to “the MPSR2’s manifest desire to silence any dissenting voice, to crush any critical citizen or any organisation critical of its management of power.’

He also appealed to all the country’s vital forces “to stand up as one to block any autocratic drift that is unacceptable in a state governed by the rule of law”.

All the organisations that spoke on the subject accused the transitional authorities of exploiting the decree on general mobilisation and warnings.

According to the MBDHP, “it is becoming increasingly clear that the Decree on General Mobilisation and Warnings was specifically designed and adopted not to contribute to the fight against terrorism in our country, but to repress anyone who expresses an opinion on the current management of our country that does not meet with the approval of the powerful of the moment.”

The trade union collective, General Confederation of Burkina Workers (CGT-B), denounced “arbitrary requisitions and calls on its structures, militants, sympathisers, sincere democrats and progressive people of the country to mobilise against its implementation.”

For the MBDHP, “the requisitions issued so far clearly constitute abuses of power that engage the individual responsibility of their authors. Sooner or later, they will have to answer for their actions.”

SD/ac/fss/abj/APA