Burkina Faso’s military junta has arrested three prominent
journalists—Guezouma Sanogo, Boukari Ouoba, and Luc Pagbelguem—amid a
growing clampdown on press freedom, according to Human Rights Watch. The
arrests came after a press conference by the Journalists Association on March 21
denouncing restrictions on the media. The association was dissolved the next day.
The journalists’ current whereabouts are unknown. This development aligns with
a wider repression trend in the Alliance of Sahel States (Burkina Faso, Mali, and
Niger), where military governments have sidelined ECOWAS, embraced Russian
support, and suppressed independent media. HRW notes that many journalists
have fled the country amid threats of imprisonment, torture, and forced
conscription. The environment for press freedom has deteriorated drastically,
with only state-aligned narratives remaining.
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