Journalists in the Sahel, particularly in the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) countries, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, are being silenced under the pretext of national security, since military dictators took over power in the three countries through coups.

Since 2021, censorship of media outlets, clampdowns on, and sometimes abduction of journalists to control narratives. Prominent and independent reporting is being eliminated in the region.

An October 2025 publication by Amnesty International said that the civic spaces in those countries have been shrinking, with journalists and other dissenting voices facing suppression and oppression, since the military juntas took power.

“Coup d’états that have taken place in different countries have led to the establishment of military regimes in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, accompanied by a shrinking of civic space.

Authorities cite the ‘protection of national sovereignty’ to justify censorship, the criminalisation of dissent and the closure of independent media,” Amnesty International’s publication partly said.

Human Rights Watch also reported that dozens of journalists have been forced to flee Burkina Faso under threat of imprisonment, torture, enforced disappearance, and forced conscription because of their work. 

“I left Ouagadougou, and I’m not planning to return,” a journalist who pleaded anonymity told Human Rights Watch following the arrest of journalist Idrissa Barry. “Free media is dead in this country – all you can hear is government propaganda,” the reporter said.

In Burkina Faso, there has been forced conscription and abduction of several journalists. In March 2025, some journalists, including leaders from the Association des Journalistes du Burkina (AJB), were abducted from the Norbert Zongo Press Center. The reporters were detained for 10 days, forced to join the junta’s anti-terror campaign, and were later paraded on national television in military uniforms, while the junta dissolved the AJB.

The military junta in Burkina Faso closed down local media platforms such as Radio Omega and l’Evènement, and also suspended international media outlets in the country.

At least four journalists disappeared in Burkina Faso within a year in 2025. Boukari Ouoba, the secretary of the journalism association in Burkina Faso, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that the situation in the country looked increasingly bad for journalists and other media workers.

“Press freedom has been deteriorating since at least 2020 due to insecurity. But from 2021, the deterioration is largely due to successive political powers,” Ouoba said. “The political pinnacle of danger was reached with two military coups that took place in 2022.”

According to Ouoba, journalists live in constant fear today. “Hate speech is frequently used against opinion leaders, and journalists are treated by those in power as being stateless people,” he said. The country’s leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, even announced he is ready to shut down media outlets that do not go in his direction.

Arnaud Ouedraogo, coordinator of CENOZO, a Burkina Faso-based investigative journalism nonprofit, said being a journalist in the country is now more stressful than ever before. “Subjects are no longer treated with ease, especially questions related to terrorist attacks and the military power in place,” said Ouedraogo, whose organisation has often come under attack.

He explained that critical journalists are often subjected to denigration campaigns on social media and many are tempted to observe self-censorship as a result. “Threats of suspension or intimidation of all kinds impact our journalism,” Ouedraogo said. “There are fewer in-depth treatments of topics of interest. Our true role as journalists should be to point out dysfunctions, so that solutions can be found.”

Ouedrago said foreign journalists working in Burkina Faso are treated in the same way as local journalists: “The only difference is that local journalists can’t be expelled,” he told CPJ.

Hyacinthe Sanou, a journalist with Studio Yafa, a company producing audio, video, and multimedia programs for young people, also told CPJ that journalists need to choose their words carefully when reporting on the country’s situation.

“It’s like having the sword of Damocles hovering over our heads,” he said. “The angle of your article, your sources, your conclusions – everything must be chosen with great care to avoid being expelled,” he said, confirming how journalists in the country have been forced into self-censorship in Burkina Faso.

Sanou said it has become difficult to work as a journalist in the country. “The noose is tightening around press freedom, and this has repercussions on our work,” he said. “The threat doesn’t come so much from the government but from some of their zealous supporters. You don’t know where the negative reaction will come from and in what form.”

He noted that he has been personally attacked by the authorities and labelled as a spy for a French nonprofit the government doesn’t like. “Every word was false. The news came out the day after I spoke in a meeting where I said that journalists should be allowed to do their work freely without attacks or interference,” he said.

According to Ouoba, the impact of this decline in press freedom is difficult to estimate. “There’s an unprecedented level of self-censorship,” he said. “Certain journalists and media houses are constantly attacked, especially on social media. They try to stifle our voices by developing a network of trolls who pollute the information environment and discredit professional journalists.”

Ouoba, the secretary of the journalism association, said he was accused alongside two other colleagues of helping Libération’s Agnès Faivre to carry out her investigation into alleged human rights violations.

“For those who don’t know me, that information immediately makes me a public enemy and a ‘stateless person’ in league with the enemies of my own country,” he said. “I went through a very difficult time for a month or so, and I’m sure my colleagues went through a very hard time too.”

Edzozi Ahiadou, Africa programme officer at the Vienna-based International Press Institute, said the pervading atmosphere of fear is “the greatest danger for press freedom” in the country.

In Niger, the military junta has also restricted access to information, while harassing reporters just like its neighbours, Burkina Faso and Mali, citing national security.

In late 2025, at least seven journalists and media workers were arrested in Niger after publicly sharing an invitation to a press conference organised by the Solidarity Fund for the Safeguarding of the Homeland, an organisation created by the military regime to mobilise resources in support of the nation. The military junta accused the journalists of “complicity in disseminating a document likely to disturb public order” under Niger’s cybercrime law. Four of the detained – Moussa Kaka, owner of Radiotélévision Saraounia, and his driver, Souleymane Brah, a freelance investigative journalist, and Abdoul Aziz, a journalist with Saraounia – were released on November 1. However, three others, Omar Kané, editor-in-chief of Le Hérisson newspaper, Issoufou Seriba, editor-in-chief of the Les Échos group, and Ibro Chaibou, editor-in-chief of Saraounia, remained in detention following a hearing at the High Court on November 3.

In Mali, military authorities target journalists for being critical of the government. In April 2025, some journalists were detained on trumped-up charges of “undermining the state,” as the military junta intensifies its suppression of the fourth estate of the democratic realm while suspending foreign media outlets and forcibly censoring local journalists.

Analysts have also noted signs of organised, large-scale propaganda campaigns using false information to boost the profiles of the Sahelian military leaders.

They revealed that the content is produced by “Russian propaganda units and then given to these influencers, through the middlemen, to post on social media,” Philip Obaji, a Nigerian journalist who has analysed Russian influence operations, said.

Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger had withdrawn from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) following the creation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in response to ECOWAS’ suspension of the three countries after the military takeovers, which occurred in August 2021 in Mali, September 2022 in Burkina Faso, and July 2023 in Niger.

However, journalists in those countries continue to face increasingly difficult and dangerous conditions due to state censorship and insurgency, with militant groups and fractured security forces threatening journalists reporting from conflict zones in Burkina Faso. Journalists in Mali also experience similar attacks in areas affected by insurgency, with some of them getting assaulted or abducted on duty.

The three countries have also stifled information and communication, with the Media Foundation for West Africa noting a general “suspension of media outlets” and increased hostility towards journalists across the Sahel region.

Also, the AES is launching its own media initiatives as propaganda tools to help defend and promote the military juntas in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali, and replace independent journalism in those countries.

In October 2024, the African Editors Forum (TAEF) condemned the “troubling deterioration of press freedom” by military authorities in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali.

A statement signed by TAEF President Churchill Otieno said the forum observed a “troubling resurgence and intensification of repression of the media” in the three Sahel countries.

It noted that the military authorities in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali had “effectively shut the media space, snuffed out freedom of expression and the press, and have become increasingly hostile to journalists.”

It further charged the military authorities to allow the media operate, and ensure the safety of all journalists in those countries.

According to TAEF, the “deterioration of the political and security environment” had brought increased pressure on journalists, worsening the environment for journalism and access to plural media.

The TAEF also raised the alarm that several international media outlets, including the BBC, VOA, RFI, TV5, Deutsche Welle, Radio Vatican, Le Monde, and Libération, among others, as well as local media such as Radio Omega and l’Evènement, were either shut down or suspended in Burkina Faso.

It noted that the situation was also compelling news organisations, fearing for their safety, to resort to the publication of news and information favourable to the military leaders, gradually overshadowing critical reporting.

It added that “an aggressive nationwide campaign to silence critical journalism and freedom of expression, and the kidnapping of journalists and human rights defenders has been reported,” under the watch of President Ibrahim Traoré.

According to the 2025 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, global press freedom is in a “difficult situation” and in decline.

The report revealed that in 2025, the situation deteriorated sharply in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the French-speaking region.

According to the report, in 2025, Burkina Faso fell 19 places, from 86 in 2024 to 105 in 2025; Mali fell five places in the ranking to 114, while Niger fell three places to 80. 

Reporters Without Borders noted that since the military’s accession to power in the three countries, threats, attacks, and arrests of journalists have become commonplace.

“In these three French-speaking countries under military rule in the Sahel, political instability and security risks relating to the presence of armed groups make it impossible to ensure the journalists’ safety,” the 2025 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index report said.