Burkina Faso: deafening silence from the government after Atiana Serge Oulon’s kidnapping by alleged members of the secret service
According to information gathered by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an armed commando in civilian clothes claiming to be members of the Burkinabe secret service apprehended Atiana Serge Oulon, a prominent journalist, in the early hours of Monday, 24 June. . RSF calls on the Burkinabe government to end their silence and release Oulon, who is renowned for his integrity and professionalism.
On Monday, 24 June 2024, as dawn broke over the Karpala neighborhood of Ouagadougou around 5am, a dozen armed men dressed in civilian clothes arrived at the home of Atiana Serge Oulon, editor of L'Événement, a leading Burkinabè investigative newspaper in Burkina Faso. According to RSF’s sources, the men ordered the journalist to get into an unmarked minibus.
"It’s a modus operandi that resembles the tactics of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) in every way,” a journalist familiar with Burkina Faso's secret services, warned RSF just five hours before two men returned to Oulon’s home, introduced themselves to his wife as secret service agents, and seized his computer and telephone.
At the time of this writing, over 24 hours have passed since the kidnapping of one of the country’s most prominent journalists yet the government had still not reacted. Despite seeking clarification on the situation, RSF’s calls and messages to Minister of Communication Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo have gone unanswered.
State services should not be mobilised to attack a distinguished journalist who heads a publication renowned for its professionalism and the quality of its investigations. In doing so, it’s clear that the perpetrators not only wanted to frighten journalists conducting investigations, but they probably also wanted to try to identify the director’s sources. These methods are disgraceful and we condemn them. This journalist must be released.
Atiana Serge Oulon is known as one of the last journalists in Burkina Faso who dares to cover military issues, a highly sensitive subject since the installation of a junta two years ago. In December 2022, L'Événement published an article about suspected embezzlement within the Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland (VDP), a militia created to fight terrorists. A few weeks later, Atiana Serge Oulon was questioned by military authorities, who tried to extract the identity of his source. The scandal recently took a new twist when a military captain died: as the fortnightly L'Événement pointed out in an article on 10 June, the captain could have been a key witness in the embezzlement case. This statement led to a one-month suspension of the fortnightly, starting on 20 June.
"We have only two choices: keep quiet or go to prison,” says Moussa Aksar, a Nigerien journalist and member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists who is facing similar difficulties in his country. "With such strong repression, the only ones left will be those who play the flute.”
