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The expulsion of French news media from Burkina Faso continued over the weekend. This time, Le Monde Afrique correspondent Sophie Douce and Libération correspondent Agnes Faivre were sent packing last Friday night. Both returned to Paris on Sunday, noted public broadcaster France 24 (April 2).
Libération had published a report (March 27), with video, on junta soldiers “executing” children and adolescents at the military barracks. Both reporters were questioned, separately, by a military officer about the report and were “urged” to leave, said Ms Faivre, to Courrier International (April 3). “To this day, we still do not understand why (Ms Douce) was targeted, and what she is accused of. Until the publication of Libération's article, she was not aware of this investigation.” Burkina Faso authorities called the report a “manipulation disguised as journalism,” noted the BBC (April 3). (See more about conflict zones here)
Earlier the military government suspended broadcasts of television channel France 24 for broadcasting an inconvenient interview with an al-Qaeda chief. In December, for similar reasons, broadcasts of Radio France Internationale (RFI) were suspended. “They are part of a context of media muzzling in Burkina Faso,” added Ms Faivre, “that has intensified after the advent of the MPSR2 [Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration) introduced after a coup d'état on January 24, 2022] led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré since the second coup of September 30.” (See more about press/media freedom here)
"It's a pretty sad story," said Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) Secretary General Christophe Deloire to France Info (April 2). "It was a country that was a model, in any case a country that was well ranked in the world ranking of press freedom, it was 41st. It is a country in which the 1991 Constitution enshrines the right to information and freedom of the press."
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