Popular Radio Station Suspended For Criticizing Niger Coup

Afimag.com –

Burkina Faso’s junta-led government has suspended one of the country’s most popular radio stations for a broadcast it considered abusive to Niger’s new military leaders.

The country’s minister of commutation, Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, who disclosed the suspension of Omega Radio, said the measure was in the great interests of the Nation.

It was gathered that the station stopped broadcasting immediately after the statement was made at the evening of August 10.

The channel granted Ousmane Abdoul Moumouni, the spokesman of a newly-established Nigerien group campaigning to return President Mohamed Bazoum to power an interview.

According to the communications minister, Moumouni reviled the new Nigerien authorities.

Moumouni was accused of campaigning for violence and war against the sovereign people of Niger” and seeks to restore Bazoum “by every means.

Reacting, Radio Omega, a few hours after suspension said it would implore every measure to fight the suspension.

it said the decision is a “blatant violation of current laws and an unacceptable attack on freedom of expression and freedom of the press.”

The order, it added, came after “numerous death threats” had been made against the station’s managers and journalists “from people describing themselves as supporters of the government.”

Burkina Faso underwent two military coups last year, each triggered in part — as in Mali and Niger — by discontent at failures to stem a raging jihadist insurgency.

It swiftly declared solidarity with Niger’s new leaders and joined Mali in warning that any military intervention to restore Bazoum would be considered a “declaration of war” against them.

The Burkinabe authorities in recent months have suspended the French TV outlets LCI and France24 as well as Radio France Internationale (RFI) and expelled the correspondents of the French newspapers Liberation and Le Monde.