After the airing of an interview with the leader of al-North Qaeda’s African wing on France 24, the military administration of Burkina Faso has ordered the suspension of the television station’s operations. The interview with Yezid Mebarek, also known as Abu Ubaydah Yusuf al-Anabi, who claimed the title of “emir of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” (AQIM) in 2020 after a French raid killed his predecessor was broadcast on the news channel this month.
By conducting an interview with the leader of AQIM, France 24 is “not only acting as a mouthpiece for these terrorists, but worse, it is providing a space for the legitimization of terrorist actions and hate speech,” the minister of communication for Burkina Faso, Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo, stated in a statement that was released on Monday. The company that runs France 24, France Medias Monde, was not immediately available for comment about the decision made by Burkina Faso. Since the military of Burkina Faso staged a coup in October and took control of the government, relations between Paris and Ouagadougou have worsened dramatically. The military deal that permitted French forces to battle armed groups on Burkina Faso’s territory was terminated in January, and Burkina Faso granted France, its former colonizer, one month to evacuate its troops from the country as it cancelled the accord. In recent years, there has been a rise of anti-French sentiment throughout various parts of Central and West Africa, some of which used to be under the administration of French colonial authorities as recently as half a century ago. This has occurred in regions that were formerly under French colonial administration.
France 24 and the French state-funded international RFI radio were accused of presenting “false claims” that the army murdered scores of civilians by the neighboring country of Mali in March of last year, which led to the suspension of transmissions by both of those news agencies in that country. These accusations were brought up by the United Nations as well as by Human Rights Watch, a human rights organization located in the United States.
