(Bamako) The junta in power in Mali continued on Thursday to crack down on any form of contradiction by banning the media from covering political parties after suspending their activities the day before.
The colonels who overthrew civilian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in 2020 decreed on Wednesday the suspension “until further notice” of the activities of parties and associations of a political nature, guilty according to them of “subversion”.
The High Authority for Communication (HAC) followed in the footsteps of the head of the junta, Colonel Assimi Goïta, signatory of the decree targeting the parties.
The HAC “invites all media (radio, television, written and online newspapers) to stop all broadcasting and publication of the activities of political parties and the political activities of associations,” it said in a press release.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it was “deeply concerned” by the suspension of party activities. The decree “must be immediately repealed,” he said on the social network X.
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller denounced the decision on Thursday and called on Mali to hold elections. “Freedom of expression and freedom of association are essential to an open society,” he told reporters.
“We call on Mali’s transitional government to honor its commitments to its citizens and organize free and fair elections,” he said.
Reporters Without Borders denounced the ban on the media as “a measure of censorship which is part of the continuum of muzzling” of information practiced under the junta.
This new turn of the screw has sparked numerous comments on social networks, although the opposition is to a large extent condemned to silence in Mali.
The Maison de la presse, a non-governmental supervisory organization speaking on behalf of part of the profession, called on the press “not to submit to the injunctions of the HAC”.
Acts of “subversion”
Former Prime Minister Moussa Mara (2014-2015) asked the authorities to reverse their suspension decision, a “major setback” which “does not bode well for a peaceful future”.
The president of the Convergence for the Development of Mali (Codem) party, Housseini Amion Guindo, called for “civil disobedience until the fall of the illegal and illegitimate regime”. Mohamed Chérif Koné, a magistrate who rebelled against the junta and was disbarred, also advocated civil disobedience. The government has been “disqualified” from speaking on behalf of Mali since March 26, he said.
The colonels had committed, under pressure from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to cede on March 26, 2024 to elected civilians the leadership of this country confronted with jihadism and plunged into deep crisis. multidimensional crisis since 2012. This milestone has just been reached without the military leaving or giving a new deadline. They had already failed to fulfill their commitment to organize the presidential election in February.
The junta accused the parties of increasing “actions of subversion” by denouncing non-compliance with the timetable or by criticizing the national dialogue for peace launched on December 31 by Colonel Goïta. The continuation of the fight against armed jihadist and Tuareg independence groups cannot accommodate “sterile political debates,” said government spokesperson Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga.
The opposition is reduced to powerlessness by coercive measures, legal challenges, dissolutions of organizations, restrictions on press freedom and the pressure of the dominant discourse on the need to unite around the junta facing a multitude of challenges.
Several parties and civil society organizations, however, were moved in a rare joint declaration on March 31 at the “legal and institutional vacuum” left after March 26 and demanded from the military that the presidential election be held “as soon as possible”.
They denounced Thursday “the unfounded allegations” on the suspension of their activities, announced that they will no longer participate in those organized by the government “including” the national dialogue, in a press release.
Since its seizure of power consolidated by a second putsch in May 2021, the junta has increased acts of rupture, and has turned militarily and politically towards Russia.
Following Mali, soldiers seized power in the Sahel neighbors of Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger in 2023. The three countries plagued by jihadism forged an alliance and decided to leave ECOWAS.