New RSF report warns of threats to journalists in the Sahel
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (PANA) - In a new report entitled "In the Skin of a Journalist in the Sahel", Reporters Without Borders (RSF) warned on Monday of serious threats to the work of journalists in the Sahel.
According to the report, five journalists have been killed in the Sahel within 10 years, while two others have recently been reported missing.
In addition, hundreds of others have been threatened and can no longer exercise their profession without risking their lives.
The 40-page report reveals how conditions for journalism have deteriorated in this part of the world and how it is becoming a "no information zone".
"Being a journalist in the Sahel means having to deal with radical armed gangs that are increasingly present and do not hesitate to murder journalists when they do not kidnap them to use them as bargaining chips.
"In this deteriorating security context, it is also necessary to deal with new powers installed through coups d'état and which impose their conception of journalism and their 'patriotic injunctions on the profession," the document said.
"We still have to learn to deal with Wagner's militia, which has an increasingly palpable influence on the regional news market, but we also have to avoid the traps of the mercenaries of disinformation," it added.
The report recalls that in the Sahel, the dangers are now multiple, as are the obstacles imposed by States that often arbitrarily limit the freedom of movement and the right to inform journalists, particularly in regions where armed groups are deployed.
To produce this report, RSF's teams in Dakar also gathered dozens of testimonies from experts and journalists living or working in the region.
The report stresses that the expansion of areas that are off-limits or difficult to access for journalists is striking in the Sahel.
"In addition to direct threats to their physical integrity, there are abusive administrative restrictions imposed by certain states. Obtaining accreditation and all the necessary authorizations to report is sometimes an obstacle course. Journalists risk being arbitrarily expelled," it said.
The report added that in Mali and Burkina Faso, military authorities who came to power in coups d'état do not hesitate to reshape the media landscape by expelling journalists and suspending media outlets.
The French channels RFI and France 24 are the main targets. Furthermore, according to the report, disinformation is particularly widespread in the Sahel, which is proving to be an experimental laboratory for "disinformation mercenaries" who operate in particular on social networks, and also within the juntas in power, which now show unfailing support for their new Russian allies.
"The immense joy that Olivier Dubois' released on 20 March gave us cannot conceal the growing difficulties facing journalists working in the Sahel. "This part of the African continent is dangerously becoming a region deprived of independent journalists and reliable information, where self-censorship is becoming the norm."
To prevent the Sahel from becoming an information-free zone, this report also calls on the states of the region, where it says a new start is absolutely necessary to prevent 110 million Sahelians from being deprived of their basic right to be informed, said Sadibou Marong, Director of RSF's office for sub-Saharan Africa.
-0- PANA TNDD/JSG/BBA/RA 3April2023
