“We are not very surprised”, according to RSF which denounces “a pretext to muzzle the media”

“We are not very surprised”, Sadibou Marong, director of the Dakar office of RSF (Reporter sans frontières), explains on franceinfo on Monday March 27, about the suspension of the broadcast of France 24 in Burkina Faso, decided by the junta in power on Monday, after the broadcast of an interview with the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). This is a “pretext to muzzle the media”according to Sadibou Marong, to avoid speaking “of the country’s major problem: the security crisis”.

“We already saw a little to what extent the junta could undermine freedom of information”, said Sadibou Marong after being alerted by a first formal notice from France 24, last February. He denounces the will of the military regime “to impose a new standard of information”which can be summed up as follows: “If the media are with the junta, they are with Burkina, but if they are against the junta, they are against Burkina”. France 24 was however “one of the most listened to and followed media in the country”he laments.