Burkina Faso confirms conscription of 3 journalists, 1 still missing

Burkina Faso's justice minister said that authorities forced journalists Kalifara Séré (left), Adama Bayala, and Serge Atiana Oulon into military service. Several other journalists and civil society figures have been conscripted since 2023. (Screenshots: BF1/YouTube; Photo: Courtesy of L'Événement)

New York, October 25, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the forced conscription of journalists Serge Atiana Oulon, Adama Bayala, and Kalifara Séré, who went missing in June, and calls for them to be immediately returned home.

“It is outrageous and chilling that Burkinabe authorities feel it is acceptable to take journalists from their homes and offices without warning and wait four months before saying publicly that they have been forced into military service,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program head. “The repeated conscription of journalists appears to be just one, aggressive tactic in a wave of censorship deployed across Burkina Faso’s media landscape.”

A fourth journalist, Alain Traoré, was seized by men in masks in July and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Thursday’s confirmation of the three journalists’ conscription came from Marcel Zongo, Director General for Human Rights at Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Justice, speaking at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the Gambian capital Banjul.

In late July 2024, CPJ wrote to Ibrahim Traoré, the president of Burkina Faso’s military government, which seized power during a 2022 coup, expressing concern over the four journalists’ disappearance and requesting assistance in investigating and making public the details of their whereabouts, as well as ensuring their wellbeing. The letter received no response.

Earlier that month, Traoré had said in a speech that an unnamed journalist had been “recently conscripted” into the army because of his reporting.

In April 2023, Burkina Faso passed an emergency general mobilization law and later that year the army ordered journalists Issaka Lingani and Yacouba Ladji Bama to report for military training, alongside other members of civil society and opposition politicians critical of authorities. Bama was outside the country and Lingani went into hiding.

CPJ’s calls and text messages to request comment from the government spokesperson Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo and the Ministry of Justice went unanswered.