APA – Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) – The authorities have imposed sanctions on several media outlets, notably French.
The “transitional government has responsibly decided to suspend all Jeune Afrique outlets in Burkina Faso until further notice, with effect from Monday 25 September 2023,” Communication Minister Jean-Emmanuel Ouédraogo announced on Monday evening.
He criticised the newspaper for having “deliberately opted for untruths and grotesque manipulation, in total denial of any professional journalistic ethics” and for engaging in “intoxication and disinformation.”
The government’s decision follows the publication on Monday 25 September 2023 of an article deemed to be “misleading” on the newspaper’s website, entitled “Au Burkina Faso, Toujours des Tensions au Sein de l’Armée.” (Tensions continue within the Burkina Faso army).
This publication follows an earlier article by the same newspaper on the same website on Thursday 21 September 2023, in which Jeune Afrique reported that “In Burkina Faso, discontent is rising in the barracks.”
According to the transitional government’s Spokesman, these assertions are “deliberately made without proof” and have “the sole aim of bringing unacceptable discredit on the national armed forces.”
The executive reaffirmed its firm stance against “any media player who puts his pen at the service of foreign interests” to the detriment of “those of the people of Burkina Faso.”
The ‘Conseil Supérieur de la Communication’ (Superior Communication Council, CSC), the media regulatory body, said that despite its numerous appeals, it had observed that some media outlets were not complying with the provisions of the law on legal deposit.
This is not the first time that media outlets have been suspended by the transitional authorities.
In mid-August 2023, the private radio station Omega was suspended for a month for giving and broadcasting an “interview peppered with insulting remarks about the new authorities in Niger.”
In early April, Ouagadougou expelled the correspondents of the French dailies Liberation and Le Monde, after ordering the suspension of the television channel France 24 in March 2023 and Radio France Internationale (RFI) in December 2022.
SD/ac/fss/abj/APA