(Nairobi) – Human Rights Watch reported today that Burkina Faso’s military junta apprehended three journalists on March 24, 2025. Their detention followed their reporting on the government’s severe suppression of media outlets.

In Ouagadougou, the capital, authorities took into custody Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba, who serve as president and vice-president of the Association des journalistes du Burkina (AJB), respectively. Also arrested was Luc Pagbelguem, a journalist with the private television channel BF1. The current whereabouts of these three individuals remain undisclosed, raising serious concerns about potential enforced disappearances.

« The arbitrary arrests and subsequent disappearance of these three journalists underscore the Burkina Faso junta’s desperate attempts to control information and ensure military authorities can commit abuses without accountability », stated Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. « The military junta must take immediate steps to locate and release all three journalists. »

Since seizing power in a 2022 coup d’état, President Ibrahim Traoré’s military junta has consistently suppressed media outlets, political opposition, and peaceful dissent. Amidst a growing Islamist insurgency, the military regime has utilized a broad emergency law to silence critics and unlawfully conscript journalists, civil society activists, magistrates, and other detractors into the army.

On March 21, the AJB organized a press conference to condemn the military junta’s restrictions on free expression and demand the release of arbitrarily detained journalists. Three days later, on March 24, individuals in plain clothes, identifying themselves as police officers from Burkina Faso’s intelligence services, arrested Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba. Separately, two intelligence agents apprehended Luc Pagbelguem for his coverage of the AJB’s press conference. The following day, the Minister of Territorial Administration and Mobility officially dissolved the AJB.

Colleagues of Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba reported that legal representatives unsuccessfully searched for them across various police stations and gendarmeries in the capital. Authorities have provided no official response to inquiries about their whereabouts. On March 25, intelligence services escorted Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba to their homes for police searches, after which they were again taken to an undisclosed location, according to their peers.

BF1 television channel confirmed that agents from the Conseil national de Sécurité had assured them they « only wished to question our colleague », yet Luc Pagbelguem’s location remains unknown. The channel subsequently issued a formal apology for broadcasting the press conference.

In a separate, recent incident on March 18, individuals claiming to be gendarmes arrested prominent political activist and journalist Idrissa Barry in Ouagadougou. His whereabouts are also presently unknown. Barry is affiliated with the political group Servir et Non se Servir (SENS), which, just four days prior to his detention, had released a statement condemning « deadly attacks » perpetrated by government forces and allied militias against civilians near Solenzo, in western Burkina Faso, on March 11.

In June 2024, security forces apprehended the distinguished 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 eventually conceded that all three men had been conscripted into military service. Their current locations also remain undisclosed.

April 2024 saw the Conseil supérieur de la communication (CSC), Burkina Faso’s media regulatory body, suspend the French television channel TV5 Monde and several other news outlets for two weeks. This action followed their reporting on a Human Rights Watch report detailing alleged crimes against humanity committed by the army against civilians in Yatenga province. Furthermore, the CSC also blocked Human Rights Watch’s website within the country.

Numerous 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 departed Ouagadougou and have no intention of returning », a journalist confided to Human Rights Watch following Idrissa Barry’s arrest. « Independent media is effectively dead in this nation – all that remains is government propaganda. »

This recent surge in the crackdown on independent media has coincided with an intensification of conflict across the nation. Over the past fortnight, the Al-Qaïda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM, also known as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, JNIM) launched assaults on army positions in various regions, resulting in the deaths of both soldiers and civilians. Local reports indicate that on March 15, GSIM fighters attacked the Séguénéga military base in the country’s north, killing seven civilians and at least four soldiers fighting alongside local militias. Human Rights Watch has authenticated a video depicting GSIM combatants storming a fortified hilltop complex in central Séguénéga.

« Burkina Faso’s relentless descent into widespread violence is not receiving the national attention and media coverage it warrants, primarily because independent media has been silenced », commented a Burkinabè journalist living in exile. « Recent incidents, such as the deadly attack on civilians in Solenzo and other locations, are either entirely ignored by pro-government media or reported with a distinct bias. »

International human rights law expressly prohibits arbitrary restrictions on freedom of expression, including 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 disclose the fate or whereabouts of the person.

« The necessity for independent media in Burkina Faso has never been more critical », asserted Ilaria Allegrozzi. « Authorities must reverse course and cease their brutal suppression of journalists, dissidents, and political opponents. »