Three journalists missing, 3 newsrooms suspended in Burkina Faso

CPJ has asked Burkina Faso authorities to ensure the safety of journalists Kalifara Séré (left), Adama Bayala and Serge Atiana Oulon, who disappeared in June 2024. (Screenshots: YouTube/BF1, YouTube/BF1 and photo courtesy of L’Événement)

Dakar, July 3, 2024 — Burkina Faso authorities must do everything possible to find and ensure the safety of missing journalists Serge Atian Oulon, Kalifara Séré and Adama Bayala, and refrain from censoring media outlets, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Wednesday.

At least three Burkinabe journalists living in the capital, Ouagadougou, disappeared under suspicious circumstances in June.

In mid-June, the country’s media regulator, the High Council for Communications (CSC), temporarily suspended the operations of three media outlets:

• the program “7 Infos” on the private television station BF1
• private bimonthly magazine L’Événement
• French-language global broadcaster TV5 Monde

Since transitional president Ibrahim Traoré took power in a military coup in 2022, CPJ has documented a deterioration of press freedom in Burkina Faso, including media suspensions, expulsions of foreign correspondents and attempts to recruit critical journalists.

“Burkina Faso authorities must do everything possible to find and ensure the safety of journalists Adama Bayala, Serge Atiana Oulon, and Kalifara Séré, and ensure that media professionals in Burkina Faso can work without censorship for their critical reporting,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program director in New York. “The climate of fear in which journalists in Burkina Faso live undermines the public’s ability to be informed and understand how they are governed at a time of growing insecurity across the country.”

The missing journalists are:

• Adama Bayala, a columnist who frequently appeared on BF1’s “Presse Echos,” was last seen leaving his university office in his car on the afternoon of June 28. A person close to Bayala, who spoke to CPJ anonymously for security reasons, said Bayala had been ill, receiving regular treatment and had to follow a strict diet. The person said the journalist’s car is still missing.

The incident occurred after the CSC ordered a one-month suspension of L’Événement’s online publications and distribution — including social media — on June 19 following Oulon’s report on a December 2022 investigation into alleged misappropriation of funds intended for the army’s civilian auxiliary forces. L’Événement announced in a June 20 Facebook statement that it would challenge the decision in court.

In a February 2023 interview with national television station RTB, Traoré criticized L’Evènement’s fraud investigation, stating that the station either did not have “correct information” or acted “in bad faith” and that the report created a “climate of distrust” between soldiers and army volunteers.

• Kalifara Séré, a commentator for BF1, has not been seen since leaving the CSC office on the evening of June 18, according to a person familiar with the matter and a member of Séré’s family who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing security reasons.

The sources told CPJ that Séré approached the CSC after the regulator suspended BF1’s “7 Infos” program for two weeks for retransmitting Séré’s comments from June 16 in which he questioned the authenticity of Traoré’s images broadcast by RTB, according to the regulator’s June 19 decision and BF1’s statement.

Police questioned Séré earlier on June 18 at the regional police station in the Wemtenga district of Ouagadougou in connection with a defamation complaint filed by Désiré Nezien, director of the National Center for Blood Transfusion (CNTS), over comments made on June 16.