Burkina Faso suspends TV5 Monde news channel for six months

Burkina Faso accuses TV5 Monde of having broadcast “tendentious remarks bordering on disinformation”. The country’s authorities announced on Tuesday June 18 the suspension of the French-speaking channel for six months. It is also sentenced to a fine of 50 million CFA francs (approximately 76,000 euros), explains the Superior Council of Communication (CSC), after a program addressing the security situation in the country. The army denied “rumors” of “mutiny” in barracks, a week after a deadly jihadist attack.

The CSC calls into question an edition of the newspaper of June 17 which had “For Guest Newton Ahmed Barry”, a journalist and former president of the electoral commission of Burkina Faso between 2014 and 2021, critic of the military regime currently in power. The CSC claims to have “revealed malicious insinuations, tendentious remarks bordering on disinformation and assertions likely to minimize the efforts made by the transitional authorities, the defense and security forces and the populations in the drive to reconquer the national territory”.

TV5 Monde had already been suspended for two weeks on April 28, for broadcasting a report from the NGO Human Rights Watch accusing the army “abuses” against civilians. Its website as well as six news sites had been suspended for the same reasons “until further notice”. Several foreign media outlets – mainly French – have been temporarily or permanently suspended since Captain Ibrahim Traoré came to power in October 2022.