In another anti-colonial step, Burkina Faso bans French channel LCI

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
29 Jun 2023 21:42
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Burkina Faso bans another ex-colonizer's news channel amid a wave of anti-colonial movements against France.

Television shows the cut signal of the France 24 channel, hours after Burkina Faso’s military government suspended the channel, on March 27, 2023. (AFP)

Burkina Faso's media watchdog organization banned French television news channel LCI for three months on Thursday, accusing it of propagating "fake information" regarding terrorist violence.

The CSC, or Communication Supreme Council, published a statement announcing the ban on LCI on all pay TV packages in the country.

The council accused the channel of saying on April 25 that "jihadists advance at full speed in conquered areas in the absence of the State" and that the VDP volunteer force was being "used as cannon fodder to protect Burkinabe soldiers from terrorists."

Such claims were considered "malicious insinuations" likely to "create trouble among the people and weaken the necessary cooperation between the army and civilians to safeguard the Burkinabe homeland," said the CSC.

Ouagadougou expelled journalists in early April working for French dailies Le Monde and Liberation.

France 24 public news channel was suspended indefinitely in late March as Radio France International had been in December.

Dozens of soldiers and VDP militiamen were killed in two separate attacks in northern Burkina on Monday, the latest carnage in one of the world's poorest countries grappling with an insurgency that began in neighboring Mali in 2015.

Over 10,000 civilians, army, and police have been killed since the start of the terrorist attacks, and at least two million people have been displaced, according to an NGO count.

Burkina Faso experienced two coups last year as a result of military rage over failures to quell the insurgency.

In early March, Burkina Faso terminated a 1961 military assistance deal with France, just weeks after telling the French ambassador and troops allegedly backing its anti-insurgency campaign to leave the nation.

The Burkinabe Foreign Ministry advised the French government that the country was "renouncing the technical military assistance agreement concluded in Paris on April 24, 1961" dated Tuesday, AFP reported, as per the correspondence.

The agreement was reached between Burkina Faso, once known as the Republic of Upper Volta, and its long-time ex-colonizer, France.