Burkina Faso: journalists detained amidst escalating media repression
The military junta governing Burkina Faso detained three journalists on March 24, 2025, for their coverage of the government’s widening crackdown on media, Human Rights Watch announced today.
Authorities apprehended Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba, who serve as president and vice-president, respectively, of the Association des journalistes du Burkina (AJB). Also arrested was Luc Pagbelguem, a journalist with the private television channel BF1, all within the capital city of Ouagadougou. The current whereabouts of these three individuals remain unknown, raising serious concerns about potential enforced disappearances.
« The arbitrary detention and subsequent disappearance of these three journalists starkly illustrate the Burkina Faso junta’s desperate attempts to control information and ensure military authorities can commit abuses with impunity, » stated Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. « The military junta must take immediate steps to locate and release these journalists. »
Since seizing power in a 2022 coup, President Ibrahim Traoré’s military junta has systematically suppressed independent media, political opposition, and peaceful dissent. Amidst a growing Islamist insurgency, the junta has leveraged broad emergency legislation to silence critics and unlawfully conscript journalists, civil society activists, and magistrates into the military.
On March 21, the AJB held a press conference to condemn the restrictions on freedom of expression imposed by the military junta and demand the release of arbitrarily detained journalists. Three days later, on March 24, plainclothes men identifying themselves as police officers from Burkina Faso’s intelligence services arrested Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba. Separately, two intelligence agents detained Luc Pagbelguem for his coverage of the AJB press conference. The following day, the Minister of Territorial Administration and Mobility dissolved the AJB.
Colleagues of Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba reported that lawyers searched unsuccessfully for them across multiple police stations and gendarmeries in the capital, with authorities providing no official response to inquiries. On March 25, intelligence services brought Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba to their homes for police searches before taking them to an undisclosed location again, according to their colleagues.
BF1 television station stated that agents from the National Security Council had assured them they « only wished to question our colleague, » but Luc Pagbelguem’s whereabouts remain unknown. The channel subsequently issued a formal apology for broadcasting the press conference.
In another recent incident, on March 18, men claiming to be gendarmes arrested prominent political activist and journalist Idrissa Barry in Ouagadougou. His location is also currently unknown. Idrissa Barry is a member of the political group Servir et Non se Servir (SENS), which, four days prior to his arrest, released a statement denouncing « deadly attacks » by government forces and allied militias against civilians near Solenzo, western Burkina Faso, on March 11.
In June 2024, members of the security forces detained renowned journalist Serge Oulon, director of the investigative newspaper L’Événement, alongside television commentators Adama Bayala and Kalifara Séré. Authorities initially denied their detention until October 2024, when they finally acknowledged that all three had been conscripted into military service. Their current whereabouts also remain undisclosed.
In April 2024, the Superior Council of Communication (CSC), Burkina Faso’s media regulatory 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 the army’s alleged crimes against humanity against civilians in Yatenga province. The CSC also 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 have no intention of returning, » one journalist confided to Human Rights Watch after Idrissa Barry’s arrest. « Free media is dead in this country – all one hears is government propaganda. »
This latest wave of repression targeting independent media coincides with an escalation of conflict across the nation. Over the past two weeks, the Al-Qaïda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM, or Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, JNIM) has attacked army positions in multiple regions, resulting in casualties among soldiers and civilians. Local sources reported that on March 15, GSIM fighters assaulted the military base in Séguénéga, northern Burkina Faso, killing seven civilians and at least four soldiers fighting alongside local militias. Human Rights Watch verified a video depicting GSIM fighters storming a fortified hill complex in central Séguénéga.
« Burkina Faso’s relentless slide into widespread violence is not receiving the national attention and media coverage it deserves because independent media outlets have been silenced, » lamented an exiled Burkinabè journalist. « Recent events, such as the deadly attack on civilians in Solenzo and other areas, are either completely ignored by pro-government media or covered with a significant bias. »
International human rights law explicitly prohibits arbitrary restrictions on freedom of expression, including through 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 reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts.
« The critical need for independent media in Burkina Faso has never been more urgent, » emphasized Ilaria Allegrozzi. « Authorities must reverse course and cease their brutal crackdown on journalists, dissidents, and political opponents. »
