Burkina Faso suspends broadcasting of French channel LCI for three months

“LCI’s programs are suspended for a period of three months in Burkina Faso on the bouquets of any distributor of toll audiovisual services from the notification of this decision”, indicated the Superior Council of Communication (CSC) of the Burkina Faso. The Burkinabè media regulatory authority decided to suspend the French news channel LCI on Thursday, June 29, after the comments of journalist Abnousse Shalmani who, at the end of April, during the program 24h Pujadas, the info in question, would have provided information and made analyzes on the security situation in the Sahel and in Burkina Faso. Comments related to deadly violence in the country and described as “false information” by the CSC.

What concretely does the CSC of Burkina reproach to the media of the TF1 group and to its journalist? The CSC criticizes the journalist for having asserted that “the terrorists whom she (the journalist) describes as ‘jihadists’ are gaining more and more ground since the departure of the French army”. But also for having declared that these terrorists “are advancing at full speed in the absence of any State in the conquered localities, particularly in the area of ??the three borders between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso”. The regulatory authority adds that “without mentioning a source, the journalist specifies that 40% of Burkinabe territory is occupied by ‘jihadists'” and that “there are thirteen thousand (13,000) dead and more than two million ( 2,000,000) internally displaced persons”.

Beyond these reproaches, the CSC deplores Abnousse Shalmani’s remarks according to which “the Burkinabè authorities are unable to contain the army; that nearly 90,000 civilians called Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP) are used “like cannon fodder” to protect the Burkinabè military against terrorists”. Ditto for the journalist’s analysis that “the departure of the French army put the authorities in difficulty in the face of terrorist attacks; that the French army contained the “jihadists” and that she (the journalist) does not see a possible solution and even predicts the creation of a future Islamic State in view of the progress of the “jihadists” on the ground”.

For the Burkinabè media constable, “all these allegations are not based on any concrete evidence and lack objectivity and credibility. According to the CSC, these are mere speculations and malicious insinuations likely, on the one hand, to demoralize the volunteers for the defense of the homeland (VDP) […] and on the other hand to reinforce the psychosis in the among populations in the face of the security crisis”. The CSC goes further in these terms: “Abnousse Shalmani’s remarks are seditious in nature when she claims that the VDPs are used as ‘cannon fodder’ to protect the army. These remarks, adds the regulatory body, are sufficiently serious and likely to create unrest within the populations and weaken the necessary collaboration sought between the army and the civilians in the safeguarding of the Burkinabe homeland. The institution also points to “a lack of honesty in the background and a partisan angle of treatment of information”, because the journalist “does not mention the numerous initiatives of the authorities to ensure security in the country, nor the progress of the army, or casualties inflicted on terrorists”. And the CSC concludes that “by letting erroneous information about Burkina Faso be disseminated through its channel, the LCI channel is responsible for the consequences of the serious breaches observed”.

By blaming Abnousse Shalmani and LCI for disseminating “erroneous information about Burkina”, the CSC may be referring the media and the journalist to official data. On the percentage of its territory controlled by Burkina, for example, the Prime Minister, Apollinaire Kyélem de Tambela, during his Speech on the situation of the nation (DSN), on May 30, advanced the level of 65%, specifying that 20% of the country is “difficult to access”. Regarding internally displaced persons, the head of government had, at the same time, argued that people who did not meet the criteria for internally displaced persons, including “employees”, had registered. Still on this subject, Mr. Kyélem affirmed that “the efforts made have enabled, as of May 23, 2023, more than 20,457 households, comprising more than 125,227 people, to return to their locality of origin”. And with regard to the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland, the head of the Burkinabè government assured, before the deputies, that “50,000 volunteers for the defense of the homeland have been recruited” and that to accentuate the fight against terrorism, “the ambition is to increase the number of VDPs to 100,000 or more”

At the beginning of April, the Burkina Faso authorities had expelled the correspondents of the French daily newspapers Liberation and Le Monde. Liberation had just published an investigation into the alleged executions of young people in a barracks. At the end of March, they had ordered the indefinite suspension of the television channel France 24, after having suspended in December 2022 Radio France Internationale (RFI), French public media, accused of having relayed messages from terrorist leaders.