The Burkina Faso junta suspends France 24 broadcasts after the broadcast of an interview with an Al Qaeda leader

Ouagadougou denounces that the chain offered AQIM “a space to legitimize its terrorist actions and hate speech”

March 27 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Burkina Faso military junta announced on Monday the suspension of broadcasts by the France 24 television network throughout the territory after the publication of an interview with the leader of the terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Abu Ubaidá Yusef to Anabi.

“The government has discovered with regret that an interview with the leader of AQIM was broadcast on France 24 two weeks ago,” said the Burkinabe transitional executive, who stressed that “without questioning the editorial freedom of the channel, the Government is questioned about the ethics that govern the professional practice of journalism in France 24”.

Thus, the government spokesman, Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo, has shown his “regret” at seeing “that the head of a terrorist organization such as AQIM, recognized as such by the entire international community, can benefit from large editorials on France 24 to express himself in the chain antenna”.

“This organization, it must be remembered, follows a line of jihadist terrorism and is responsible for atrocious crimes that shake the human conscience and have left thousands of victims around the world,” he recalled, before denouncing that AQIM “feeds violence and terrorist barbarism against peaceful populations in the Sahelo-Saharan band”.

In this sense, he stressed that the terrorist group “has disastrous plans” for Burkina Faso and argued that, by granting him that interview, “France 24 is not only acting as a communication agency for terrorists, but is offering a space for legitimization to their terrorist actions and hate speech”.

“The Government has therefore decided, with all responsibility and in the name of the nation’s best interest, to indefinitely suspend the broadcast of France 24 programs throughout the national territory,” Ouédraogo said in his statement, published by the Government Information Service on your account on the Twitter social network.

Ouédraogo has reported that the Burkinabe military junta “reaffirms its commitment to freedom of the press and opinion”, although it has transferred to France 24 and “all media professionals” its “responsibilities” regarding “the editorial choice in the treatment of information on terrorism”.

“In the noble fight to free our country from the barbarity of the terrorist hordes and armed bandits, we warn that we will remain intransigent in defending the vital interests of our people against all those who act as loudspeakers to amplify terrorist actions. and the hate speech and division transmitted by these armed groups”, has settled.

The head of the Burkina Faso military junta, Ibrahim Traoré, stressed last week that the authorities are working “for the reconquest of the territory” and “the return of peace” in the face of the intensification of attacks by jihadist groups, including the regional branches of Al Qaeda and Islamic State. “We will never leave our homeland,” he said.

Traoré, now president of the transition, led a coup in September 2022 that was considered a “palace coup” by a sector of the military junta confronting the hitherto leader of the junta established after the coup d’état in January of that year. , Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

Burkina Faso has seen a sharp increase in jihadist attacks in recent years, the work of both al Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates in the region. Abuses by the security forces against the population have helped these groups in their recruitment efforts.