HRF condemns the Burkina Faso junta’s imposition of compulsory military and “patriotism” training on journalists as part of its war on insurgents. This political indoctrination and militarization of the press marks another step in the Ibrahim Traoré regime’s drive for totalitarian power.
From August 9 to 14, Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Security forced 44 journalists to spend six days in army fatigues, handling weapons at the Pabré police academy near the capital, Ouagadougou. It ended with live firing exercises. The security minister announced the training would become permanent and be held every year. The communication minister, who also serves as regime spokesperson, told the journalists that “in a country fighting for its sovereignty, a journalist cannot be treated as an ordinary citizen, and that a professional journalist who is not a patriot is a threat to their country.”
This “patriotic immersion” follows the military conscription of journalists critical of Ibrahim Traoré‘s regime. Based on an April 2023 general mobilisation decree, authorities forced Guézouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba (leaders of the independent press union) and investigative journalist Serge Oulon, into service on the frontlines of the war against insurgents.
Training journalists is one piece of a wider apparatus. Compulsory “patriotic immersion” now extends to more than 65,000 school leavers, with a national network of state-selected instructors deployed across every region of Burkina Faso to run it.
