(Nairobi) – Human Rights Watch reported today that Burkina Faso’s military junta apprehended three journalists on March 24, 2025, for their reporting on the government’s widening media suppression.
In Ouagadougou, the capital, authorities detained Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba, who serve as president and vice-president of the Association of Journalists of Burkina (AJB), respectively. Luc Pagbelguem, a journalist with the private television channel BF1, was also taken into custody. The current whereabouts of these three individuals remain undisclosed, raising serious concerns about potential enforced disappearances.
« The arbitrary arrests and subsequent disappearances of these three journalists underscore the Burkina Faso junta’s desperate attempts to control information and ensure military authorities can commit abuses without accountability », stated Ilaria Allegrozzi, a senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. She added, « The military junta must take immediate action to locate and release the three journalists. »
Since seizing power in a 2022 coup, President Ibrahim Traoré’s military junta has consistently suppressed independent media, political opposition, and peaceful dissent. Amidst a growing Islamist insurgency, the junta has leveraged a broad emergency law to silence critics and unlawfully conscript opponents, including journalists, civil society activists, and magistrates, into the army.
On March 21, the AJB organized a press conference to condemn the military junta’s restrictions on free expression and demand the release of arbitrarily detained journalists. Three days later, on March 24, plainclothes individuals identifying as police from Burkina Faso’s intelligence services took Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba into custody. Separately, two intelligence agents arrested Luc Pagbelguem for his coverage of the AJB’s press event. The following day, the Minister of Territorial Administration and Mobility officially dissolved the AJB.
Colleagues of Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba reported that lawyers unsuccessfully searched for them across various police stations and gendarmeries in the capital. Authorities have not provided any official response to inquiries about their whereabouts. On March 25, intelligence services escorted Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba to their homes for police searches, then subsequently transported them to an undisclosed location, according to their peers.
BF1 television channel stated that agents from the National Security Council had assured them they « only wished to question our colleague », yet Luc Pagbelguem’s location remains unknown. The channel subsequently issued a formal apology for broadcasting the press conference.
In another recent detention, on March 18, individuals claiming to be gendarmes arrested prominent political activist and journalist Idrissa Barry in Ouagadougou. His whereabouts are also undisclosed. Idrissa Barry is affiliated with the political group Servir et Non se Servir (SENS), which, just four days prior to his arrest, had published a statement condemning « deadly attacks » perpetrated by government forces and allied militias against civilians near Solenzo, western Burkina Faso, on March 11.
In June 2024, security forces detained Serge Oulon, the esteemed director of the investigative newspaper L’Événement, alongside television commentators Adama Bayala and Kalifara Séré. Authorities initially denied their custody until October 2024, when they finally acknowledged that all three men had been conscripted into military service. Their current locations also remain undisclosed.
In April 2024, Burkina Faso’s Superior Council of Communication (CSC), the country’s media oversight body, suspended French television channel TV5 Monde and several other media outlets for two weeks. This action followed their reporting on a Human Rights Watch report detailing alleged crimes against humanity committed by the army against civilians in Yatenga province. The CSC further blocked Human Rights Watch’s website within the country.
Dozens of journalists have been compelled to flee Burkina Faso, facing threats of imprisonment, torture, enforced disappearance, and forced conscription due to their professional activities.
« I have left Ouagadougou and do not intend to return », a journalist confided to Human Rights Watch following Idrissa Barry’s arrest. « Free media is dead in this country – all one hears is government propaganda. »
This most recent wave of suppression targeting independent media coincides with an intensifying conflict across the nation. Over the past fortnight, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM, also known as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, JNIM), an Al-Qaeda-linked group, has assaulted army positions in multiple regions, resulting in casualties among both soldiers and civilians. Local sources indicated that on March 15, GSIM fighters attacked the Séguénéga military base in the country’s north, killing seven civilians and at least four soldiers fighting alongside local militias. Human Rights Watch has authenticated a video depicting GSIM combatants storming a fortified hilltop complex in central Séguénéga.
« Burkina Faso’s relentless descent into widespread violence is not receiving the national attention and media coverage it warrants, primarily because independent media have been silenced », remarked a Burkinabè journalist living in exile. « Recent incidents, such as the deadly attack on civilians in Solenzo and other locations, are either entirely ignored by pro-government media or reported with a distinct bias. »
International human rights law prohibits arbitrary restrictions on freedom of expression, which includes the detention or enforced disappearance of journalists. The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, to which Burkina Faso is a state party, defines enforced disappearance as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials or their agents, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the person.
« The necessity for independent media in Burkina Faso has never been more critical », asserted Ilaria Allegrozzi. « Authorities should reverse course and cease their brutal repression targeting journalists, dissidents, and political opponents. »
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