Among these media are the French newspaper “Le Monde”, the British newspaper “The Guardian”, the German broadcaster “Deutsche Welle” (DW) and the French broadcaster “TV5 Monde”.
These media reported on the report of the human rights organization “Human Rights Watch” (HRW), which states that Burkina Faso’s soldiers killed at least 223 people in revenge attacks on two villages on February 25.
In an order dated Saturday, Burkina Faso’s communications regulator CSC also named other media, including the French regional newspaper “Ouest-France”, the African news website “APAnews” and the Swiss-based “Agence Ecofin”.
The CSC already announced last Thursday that it has ordered Internet service providers to suspend access to the websites of the British broadcaster BBC, the US radio station “Voice of America” (VOA) and HRW in Burkina Faso for two weeks.
Britain and the US issued a statement on Monday saying they were “deeply concerned” by the massacre and the subsequent media blackout.
London and Washington jointly called on Ouagadougou to “properly investigate these massacres and bring those responsible to justice,” according to an HRW statement.
The European Union (EU) expressed its “strong condemnation” of the massacre and called on the authorities to launch an “independent and impartial” investigation. The EU also emphasized that “freedom of speech and the right to information are essential elements of the rule of law”.
Burkina Faso’s junta dismissed as “unfounded” the HRW report on the massacre, in which 56 children were among the dead.
“The murders in Nodin and Soro have led to the initiation of an investigation,” announced the Minister of Communications Rimtalba Jean-Emmanuel Vedraogo. He expressed his surprise that “while the investigation is ongoing to establish the facts and identify the perpetrators, HRW has been able to identify the ‘culprits’ and deliver its verdict with its unbridled imagination.”
Tags: Burkina Faso suspends foreign media reports massacre
