Rights Group Says Burkina Faso’s Junta Abused Journalist

Burkina Faso’s military junta secretly detained and abused a prominent investigative journalist and dozens of others in a makeshift prison in the capital, according to a new report by Reporters Without Borders. The group says Atiana Serge Oulon, editor of the newspaper L’Evenement, was taken from his home in June 2024; the junta claimed he had been conscripted into the military, but former detainees told RSF he and as many as 40 others were held in a heavily guarded villa in Ouagadougou as recently as late 2025, where they were beaten and otherwise abused. His current whereabouts are unknown.

The case fits a broader pattern documented by Tangi Bihan in a WPR briefing in June 2025: As Traore’s counterinsurgency strategy has deepened the country’s security crisis, he has turned increasingly to repressive measures against anyone he perceives as a threat—including journalists, critics and civil society.

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