One of Burkina Faso’s most well-liked radio stations has been halted by the junta-run administration after it aired an interview that was deemed “insulting” to the country’s new military rulers in Niger.
Thursday saw an instant suspension of Radio Omega “until further notice,” according to a statement from Communications Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo.
The action, according to him, was “in the higher interests of the nation.”
After the statement was released late on Thursday, the station, which is a part of the Omega media group and is owned by journalist and former foreign minister Alpha Barry, stopped transmitting.
Ousmane Abdoul Moumouni, the representative of a recently formed Nigerien group agitating for the reinstatement of President Mohamed Bazoum, was interviewed by the channel.
On July 26, the Presidential Guard deposed the nation’s elected president.
According to Ouedraogo, a government spokesperson, Moumouni made “insulting remarks regarding the new Nigerien authorities.”
He claimed that his group is “clearly advocating for violence and war against the sovereign people of Niger” and that it wants to rebuild Bazoum “by any means possible.”
On Friday, Radio Omega declared that it will use “every available remedy” to contest the ban.
The ruling is a “blatant violation of current laws and an unacceptable attack on freedom of expression and freedom of the press,” it claimed.
The order, it said, was issued as a result of “numerous death threats” that had been made against the station’s editors and reporters by “people describing themselves as supporters of the government.”
The suspension of the station was “strongly” criticised by the nation’s top journalists’ organisation, OPM, and its “immediate” lifting was sought.
Two military takeovers occurred in Burkina Faso last year, each partly motivated by frustration over the country’s inability to quell a burgeoning jihadist insurgency.
It quickly vowed to support Niger’s new authorities and joined Mali in announcing that any military action to bring Bazoum back would be viewed as a “declaration of war” against them.
Recently, the Burkinabe government removed the journalists of the French newspapers Liberation and Le Monde and suspended the French TV networks France24, LCI, and Radio France Internationale.
