Burkina orders RFI “immediately suspended” “until further notice”.

Burkina Faso on Saturday ordered the “immediate suspension and until further notice” of Radio France Internationale (RFI), accusing it, among other things, of transmitting a “message of intimidation” attributed to a “terrorist leader”, a Burkina Faso government spokesman said.

By delivering this message, the RFI is “thus contributing to a desperate maneuver by the terrorist groups to dissuade the thousands of Burkina Faso mobilized to defend the Fatherland,” according to a press release signed by spokesman Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo.

Earlier this week, the al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM) released a video in which one of its leaders in Burkina Faso threatened to attack villages defended by the Homeland Defense Volunteers (VTM), a civilian auxiliary. an army that has just raised 90,000 men in three weeks to deal with renewed jihadist attacks.

‘Unfounded’ accusations, says RFI

The government also criticizes French public radio RFI for including in Friday’s press review “false information indicating that: Transitional President Captain Ibrahim Traore assures that the coup attempt was directed against his authority. The statement recalled that “on November 3, the government already expressed its outrage at the tendentious attitude of the journalists of this media outlet (RFI) and their tendency to discredit the struggle waged by the people of Burkina Faso for greater freedom and dignity.”

“In view of all of the above, the government has taken the decision to immediately suspend, until further notice, the broadcast of Radio France Internationale programs throughout the country,” he adds.

RFI management “strongly regrets this decision and protests the completely unfounded allegations that cast doubt on the professionalism of its antennas,” she said in a press release Saturday evening. “This reduction took place without prior notice and without following the procedures stipulated in the RFI Broadcasting Agreement established by the Burkina Faso High Communications Council,” she says.

Also banned in Mali

RFI adds that France’s global media group, to which RFI belongs, will “consider all options to restore RFI broadcasting and recall its continued commitment to freedom of information as well as to the professional work of its journalists.” Radio is listened to by “more than 40% of the population and more than 70% of opinion leaders” every week in Burkina Faso, according to RFI management.

Burkina, the scene of two military coups in eight months and plagued by jihadist violence since 2015, became the second country in the region to ban RFI this year after Mali, also led by coup soldiers and hit by jihadists in March.