Burkina Faso authorities have suspended the VOA news agency for three months after discovering “serious shortcomings” in its Washington Forum program
Burkina Faso’s Higher Council for Communication (CSC) has suspended the Voice of America (VOA) for allegedly broadcasting a program that could “undermine the morale” of the West African nation’s armed forces and their counterparts in neighboring Mali.
The state-owned Burkina Information Agency (AIB) reported the move on Monday, adding that the ban imposed on the US-funded outlet would last three months.
According to AIB, the Burkinabe media regulator made the decision after discovering “serious shortcomings” in the September 19 edition of VOA’s 30-minute news program, Washington Forum, which aired on private local radio station Ouaga FM.
During a panel discussion on the show, Bagassi Koura, managing editor of VOA’s Bambara language service, described last month’s terrorist attack on a military training school in Mali’s capital, Bamako, as “brave.” He is also cited by AIB as stating that an assault that killed hundreds of people in Burkina Faso’s north-central town of Barsalogho in August proved “nothing is being done in terms of security by the combatant forces.”
In a press release late Monday, the Burkinabe communication authority announced that it was suspending national media synchronization with international outlets until further notice. It expressed concern about the repeated dissemination of “malicious and biased” information by some national media organizations in the context of synchronization slots with international media.
“This information, generally erroneous and/or tending insidiously to advocate terrorism, is inconsistent with the texts in force and has a negative impact on the current socio-security climate in the country,” CSC President Louis Modeste Ouedraogo stated.
Ouedraogo warned international media organizations operating in Burkina Faso to be ethical in their reporting on the landlocked country, which has endured jihadist violence for nearly a decade.
This is the second time this year that VOA is facing restrictions in the Sahel nation. In April, Burkina Faso pulled the outlet’s and BBC Africa’s broadcasts off the air and banned their websites for two weeks over their coverage of a Human Rights Watch report accusing the country’s army of mass executions.
Several western channels, including French outlets TV5Monde, Le Monde, and Ouest-France, the British newspaper The Guardian, and the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), have all had their websites blocked in the Burkina Faso for allegedly spreading disinformation in violation of local laws.
