APA – Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) The transitional government has suspended all distribution of the French magazine in Burkina Faso.
On Tuesday, Jeune Afrique denounced “yet another attack on freedom of information,” in reaction to its suspension by the Burkinabe military authorities.
“The management and editorial staff of Jeune Afrique Media Group protest against this outdated censorship, while hoping that the perpetrators will reconsider,” said the media outlet, which is accused of “misinformation.”
The Burkinabe government accused the newspaper of having “deliberately chosen untruths and grotesque manipulation, in total denial of any professional journalistic ethics” and of engaging in “intoxication and disinformation.”
The government’s decision follows the publication on Monday 25 September 2023 of an article on the newspaper’s website entitled “Au Burkina Faso, toujours des tensions au sein de l’armée,” which was deemed to be “misleading”.
In JA’s view, this sanction “does not reflect a great deal of serenity on the part of those who took it,” is reminiscent of methods “used in the days of the single parties” and “contributes a little more to making the region, and Burkina Faso in particular, a zone of non-information.”
“For our part, we have no intention of depriving our readers in Burkina Faso of their right to pluralist, verified and balanced information,” insisted the French magazine.
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.”
At the beginning of 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.
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