One of Burkina Faso’s most well-liked radio stations has been halted by the junta-run administration after it aired an interview that was deemed “insulting” to the country’s new military rulers in Niger.
Thursday saw an instant suspension of Radio Omega “until further notice,” according to a statement from Communications Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo.
The action, according to him, was “in the higher interests of the nation.”
After the statement was released late on Thursday, the station, which is a part of the Omega media group and is owned by journalist and former foreign minister Alpha Barry, stopped transmitting.
The channel had aired an interview with Ousmane Abdoul Moumouni, the spokesperson for a recently formed Nigerien organisation pushing for the reinstatement of President Mohamed Bazoum.
On July 26, the Presidential Guard deposed the nation’s elected president.
According to Ouedraogo, a government spokeswoman, Moumouni made “insulting remarks about the new Nigerien authorities.”
He claimed that his group is “clearly advocating for violence and war against the sovereign people of Niger” and that it wants to bring back Bazoum “by any means.”
Two military takeovers occurred in Burkina Faso last year, each partly motivated by frustration over the country’s inability to quell a burgeoning jihadist insurgency.
It quickly vowed to support Niger’s new authorities and joined Mali in announcing that any military action to bring Bazoum back would be viewed as a “declaration of war” against them.
Recently, the Burkinabe government removed the journalists of the French newspapers Liberation and Le Monde and suspended the French TV networks France24, LCI, and Radio France Internationale.
