OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – Burkina Faso’s ruling military junta has suspended Radio France Internationale (RFI) broadcasting, accusing it of spreading false information and providing a platform for Islamist militants, a source said. posted on the government website.
The government accuses RFI of having broadcast a message on Saturday from a group leader whom it describes as a “terrorist” threatening the population.
He adds that RFI took up a press report – which he denied – according to which the President of Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, declared that he had been the target of an attempted coup.
“In view of all the above, the government has decided to suspend immediately, until further notice, the broadcasting of Radio France Internationale programs throughout the national territory”, can we read in the press release, signed by government spokesman Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo.
RFI is one of the most listened to radio stations in French-speaking Africa. It is followed by 40% of the population every week in Burkina Faso.
“The management of RFI strongly deplores this decision and protests against the totally unfounded accusations calling into question the professionalism of its antennas”, reacted the management of RFI in a press release.
“The France Médias Monde group will explore all avenues to achieve the restoration of RFI’s broadcasting, and recalls its unfailing attachment to freedom of information and to the professional work of its journalists,” she added.
The broadcast of RFI was also suspended by the military power in neighboring Mali last March.
This decision comes in a context of renewed tensions between France and its former colonies in West Africa. The latter accuse the French state of not having done enough to fight the Islamist rebels installed in northern Mali in 2012, who have spread to neighboring states.
Insecurity has greatly destabilized the powers in place, leading to coups in August 2020 and May 2021 in Mali, and in January 2022 and September 2022 in Burkina Faso.
France withdrew its troops from Mali in the face of the junta’s delay in restoring constitutional rule and the military government’s decision to commit Russian Wagner forces to fight the rebels.
The French embassy, cultural centers and military bases in Burkina Faso were the target of popular violence on the day of the coup and on 18 November. The rioters demanded the departure of France and the use of Russian aid to fight the rebels.
(Report by Anne Mimault, written by Bate Felix, French version Tangi Salaün and Caroline Pailliez)