Human Rights Watch reported today that on March 24, 2025, the military junta in Burkina Faso apprehended three journalists. Their detention stemmed from their reporting on the government’s intensifying suppression of media outlets.
In Ouagadougou, the capital, authorities took into custody Guezouma Sanogo, president of the Association of Journalists of Burkina (AJB), Boukari Ouoba, the AJB’s vice-president, and Luc Pagbelguem, a journalist from the private television channel BF1. The current whereabouts of these three individuals remain undisclosed, prompting serious concerns about potential forced disappearances.
“The arbitrary arrest and subsequent disappearance of these three journalists indicate the Burkina Faso junta’s desperate efforts to control information and ensure military authorities can act with impunity,” commented Ilaria Allegrozzi, a 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, President Ibrahim Traoré’s military junta has consistently suppressed independent media, political opposition, and peaceful dissent. Amidst a growing Islamist insurgency, the junta has leveraged a sweeping emergency law to silence critics and unlawfully conscript journalists, civil society activists, magistrates, and other detractors into the armed forces.
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, plainclothes individuals, identifying themselves as Burkinabè intelligence officers, arrested Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba. Separately, two intelligence agents detained Luc Pagbelguem for his coverage of the AJB’s press briefing. 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 searched numerous police stations and gendarmerie posts in the capital without success, and authorities have provided no official response to inquiries regarding their whereabouts. According to their colleagues, on March 25, intelligence services took Sanogo and Ouoba to their homes for police searches before transporting them once again to an undisclosed location.
BF1 television channel stated that agents from the National Security Council had merely intended “to hear 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 belongs to the political group Servir et Non se Servir (SENS), which, just four days prior to his detention, had released a statement condemning “deadly attacks” by government forces and allied militias against civilians near Solenzo, in western Burkina Faso, on March 11.
Back in June 2024, security forces apprehended renowned investigative journalist Serge Oulon, director of L’Événement newspaper, 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 locations also remain undisclosed.
In April 2024, Burkina Faso’s media regulatory body, the Superior Council of Communication (CSC), suspended 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.
Due to their professional activities, scores of journalists have been compelled to flee Burkina Faso, facing threats of imprisonment, torture, forced disappearance, and involuntary military conscription.
Following Idrissa Barry’s arrest, one journalist informed Human Rights Watch, “I have departed Ouagadougou and have no intention of returning. Independent media is defunct in this nation; all that remains is government propaganda.”
This recent surge in the repression of independent media has occurred concurrently with an escalation 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 or JNIM) launched attacks on military positions in various regions, resulting in casualties among both soldiers and civilians. Local reports indicated that on March 15, GSIM fighters assaulted the Séguénéga military base in northern Burkina Faso, killing seven civilians and at least four soldiers who were fighting alongside local militias. Human Rights Watch independently verified a video depicting GSIM combatants storming a fortified hilltop complex in central Séguénéga.
An exiled Burkinabè journalist lamented, “Burkina Faso’s relentless descent into widespread violence is not receiving the national attention or media coverage it warrants because independent outlets have been silenced. Recent events, such as the deadly attack on civilians in Solenzo and other locations, are either ignored by pro-government media or reported with a distinct bias.”
International human rights law explicitly prohibits arbitrary restrictions on freedom of expression, which includes the detention or forced disappearance of journalists. The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, to which Burkina Faso is a signatory state, defines forced disappearance as the arrest or detention of an individual by state officials or their agents, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or to disclose the person’s fate or whereabouts.
Ilaria Allegrozzi emphasized, “The necessity for independent media in Burkina Faso has never been more critical. Authorities must reverse course and cease their brutal repression targeting journalists, dissidents, and political opponents.”
