The spokesperson for the Ouagadougou government, Rimtalba Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo, declared in a statement on Monday that “all Jeune Afrique distribution media in Burkina Faso have been suspended until further notice.”
Jeune Afrique is a monthly magazine and website with various correspondents and contributors across Africa and internationally. It was founded in France in 1960.
Tensions in the Burkina Faso army, a recent and deceptive article headlined “Tensions Persist in the Burkina Faso Army,” was to blame, according to him.
“This publication follows an earlier article by the same newspaper on the same website”, published on Thursday, “in which Jeune Afrique alleged that ‘Discontent is growing in Burkina Faso barracks’,” the statement added.
“These deliberate assertions, made without the slightest hint of proof, have no other purpose than to discredit the national armed forces and, by extension, all fighting forces in an unacceptable manner.”
In a statement released on Tuesday, Jeune Afrique referred to the action as “another attack on freedom of information” in a nation where investigative journalist Norbert Zongo was killed in 1998.
Additionally, it denounced “censorship from another age” and expressed hope that the authorities would rethink the restriction.
It claimed that the suspension was also a further modest step in the direction of making the area, and Burkina Faso in particular, a no-news zone.
The military government has imposed suspensions on several TV and radio stations, evicted foreign correspondents, and targeted French media since seizing power in a coup in 2022.
Following the expulsion of the journalists of the French newspapers Liberation and Le Monde in April, the Burkinabe government declared in June that the French television channel LCI would be suspended for three months.
They had commanded the suspension of the television network France 24 at the end of March.
Both Western countries and the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) are concerned about the recent coups that have taken place in the Sahel region.
The three nations, which were all once French colonies, have become more anti-Paris as a result of the military leaders’ developing connections with Russia.
Durring an interview this month, the new leader, chief Captain Ibrahim Traore, said Burkina was not “the enemy of the French people” but of the policies of its government.
“We have to accept seeing each other as equals… and accept an overhaul of our entire cooperation,” he told state television.
