Burkina Faso government suspends international news outlets over reporting on human rights concerns amid ongoing conflict. (Issouf Sanogo/AFP)
- Burkina Faso has
suspended several international news organisations for reporting on a Human
Rights Watch report that accused the army of civilian attacks. - The suspensions
follow earlier actions against the BBC, VOA, and Human Rights Watch, with the
government dismissing HRW’s claims of army abuses as “baseless”. - The issue stems
from allegations of army violence against civilians, described by HRW as
potentially amounting to crimes against humanity, amid a jihadist insurgency.
Burkina
Faso has suspended several international news organisations, some of them, for
an indefinite period, according to a statement from communications regulator
the CSC.
Among
those named in the weekend order are French newspaper Le Monde, British
publication The Guardian, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and French
broadcaster TV5 Monde.
They
were suspended for reporting on a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that accused
the army of attacks on civilians in its battle against jihadists.
The
other news media named in the latest statement, dated Saturday, were French
regional newspaper Ouest-France, APAnews and Agence Ecofin.
Already
on Thursday, the CSC announced it had directed internet service providers to
suspend access to the BBC, VOA and Human Rights Watch from Burkinabe territory
for two weeks.
The
military rulers of Burkina Faso have dismissed as “baseless” the
claims by HRW that its soldiers had killed at least 223 villagers in two
attacks on 25 February.
“The
killings at Nodin and Soro led to the opening of a legal inquiry,”
communications minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo said in a statement
late on Saturday.
He
expressed his surprise that “while this inquiry is underway to establish
the facts and identify the authors, HRW has been able, with boundless
imagination, to identify ‘the guilty’ and pronounce its verdict”.
HRW
described the massacre as “among the worst army abuse in Burkina Faso
since 2015”.
“These
mass killings… appear to be part of a widespread military campaign against
civilians accused of collaborating with Islamist armed groups, and may amount
to crimes against humanity,” the New York-based group said on Thursday.According
to the Burkina statement, “The media campaign orchestrated around these
accusations fully shows the unavowed intention … to discredit our fighting
forces.”
The
West African nation, under military rule since 2022, has been battered by a
jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015.
Thousands
of civilians, troops and police have been killed, two million people have fled
their homes, and anger within the military at the mounting toll sparked two
coups in 2022.
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Source link : https://www.news24.com/news24/africa/news/burkina-faso-suspends-more-international-news-media-20240429
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Publish date : 2024-04-29 09:38:59