Burkina Faso ranked 37th in 2021 world press freedom report
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (PANA) - Burkina Faso has fallen from 38th in 2020 to 37th place in 2021 in the world press freedom ranking, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced.
RSF underlined that Burkina Faso experienced a post-Blaise Compaoré transition in 2015, without major media repression but certain measures came in recent years to mar this positive record.
In 2019, RSF noted, the National Assembly adopted an amendment to the Penal Code which severely punishes offences of "false information" and certain publications on security forces.
In addition to allowing the state to exercise "very strict control" over information, this amendment introduced "extremely serious restrictions" on the freedom to inform, as it allows for heavy fines to be imposed on the media covering critically and objectively the fight against terrorism by the national armed forces, which remains a perilous exercise, RSF underlined.
"More recently, defamation has been decriminalised, but while it no longer leads to prison terms, it remains punishable by heavy fines that can lead to the outright shutdown of the media concerned," the organization said.
And in 2020, pressure increased on journalists, as reported by the Association of Journalists of Burkina (AJB), which recorded no less than six attacks or cases of intimidation against reporters.
-0- PANA TNDD/JSG/KND/AR 20April2021
