Click to expand Image Serge Oulon signing his books at the Norbert Zongo press center in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, October 2023. © 2023 Private (Nairobi) – Burkina Faso’s authorities should urgently account for the journalist Atiana Serge Oulon, who was forcibly disappeared by state security forces two years ago, and release him immediately, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Observatoire Kisal, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership between the International Federation for Human Rights (Fédération internationale pour les droits humains) and the World Organisation Against Torture, and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, or RSF) said today.On June 24, 2024, armed men claiming to be intelligence agents abductedOulon, 40, director of the newspaper L’Événement (The Event), from his home in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital. In July, Burkina Faso’s president, Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, acknowledged that a journalist had been arrested for allegedly spreading falsehoods, an apparent reference to Oulon. The government later confirmed that Oulon and other journalists had been conscripted into the armed forces. However, in May 2026, an exclusive investigation from RSF revealed that security forces, including high-ranking officials close to President Traoré, secretly detained and tortured Oulon in private houses converted into unofficial prisons in Ouagadougou.“Oulon has been specifically targeted for his journalistic work by the regime and was subjected to different kinds of abuses and detained without any contact with a lawyer or family members,” said Sadibou Marong, RSF’s Sub-Saharan Africa director. “Oulon’s family and friends have the right to know what happened to him and obtain justice.”Oulon, an investigative journalist known for exposing corruption within the security forces, had long reported on alleged misuse of public funds. In a December 2022 investigation, he alleged that an “[army] captain from the Centre-Nord region” diverted 400 million CFA francs (about US$660,000) earmarked for the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (Volontaires pour la défense de la patrie), civilian auxiliaries supporting the military. The rank and region of deployment of the “captain” matched President Traoré. Just days before Oulon’s abduction, authorities suspended L’Événement after it revisited the corruption allegations.RSF reported that security forces held Oulon, along with other civilians, in at least two villas opposite the US embassy in Ouagadougou and severely beat and deprived them of food.Since taking power in September 2022, Burkina Faso’s military authorities have sharply curtailed civic space, targeting independent media, the political opposition, and civil society. They have used a sweeping 2023 emergency law, introduced to support counterinsurgency efforts and suppress dissent, including through the unlawful and politically motivated conscription of journalists, civil society activists, opposition figures, and members of the judiciary.“Several dozens of government critics have been unlawfully conscripted and deployed to combat zones without adequate training,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This cruel practice appears intended to pressure critics into submission through fear and coercion.”While governments may conscript civilians for national defense, international standards require that recruitment be carried out through a lawful process that provides clear notice, due process safeguards, and an opportunity to challenge the decision.Between July and October 2025, at least seven journalists and three activists, who had been previously conscripted, were released, while Moussa Sareba, a journalist working for the online outlet Fil Infos, who was forcibly disappeared in August 2025, is still missing. Others remain behind bars on politically motivated charges, including Guy Hervé Kam, a prominent lawyer and founding member of the civil society group Balai Citoyen.International media outlets and human rights organizations have extensively reported that security forces converted dozens of villas in Ouaga 2000, a neighborhood of Ouagadougou, as well as other properties on the outskirts of the capital into unofficial detention sites where they have secretly and unlawfully detained hundreds of people, including government critics, political opponents, and others perceived as enemies of the authorities. Former detainees have described being held incommunicado in these makeshift prisons and being subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment.“People are being detained in unofficial prisons without access to lawyers, family members, and medical assistance,” said Marceau Sivieude, Amnesty International’s regional director for West and Central Africa. “Many of those who were eventually released were never presented before a judge or charged officially and were prevented from leaving the country afterwards.”Burkina Faso is party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Under international law, an enforced disappearance occurs when state authorities or their agents detain a person and then refuse to acknowledge or disclose their fate or whereabouts, placing them outside the protection of the law. People forcibly disappeared are at heightened risk of torture and other ill-treatment and extrajudicial execution.“Burkina Faso’s authorities should immediately and unconditionally release Oulon and all those arbitrarily detained and unlawfully conscripted,” said Drissa Traoré, secretary general of the International Federation for Human Rights. “They should end the unlawful use of conscription to silence journalists and other critics of the military authorities.”The authorities have expelled foreign journalists and suspended and banned numerous national and international media outlets and organizations, often citing vague administrative grounds or responding to critical reporting.The government’s suppression of independent media has enabled it to exert far greater control over public discourse while expanding the reach of state-aligned propaganda and disinformation. Networks of pro-government activists—including coordinated groups known as Rapid Communication Intervention Battalions tasked with shaping public opinion on social media—amplify government messaging, promote support for President Traoré, harass critics and human rights defenders, and often spread hate and violence against minorities.The military authorities have also cracked down on unions. In May 2026, the minister of territorial administration suspended the country’s largest student union, the General Union for Burkina Students (L’union générale des étudiants burkinabè) for three months, citing “glorification of terrorism.” The decree provided no explanation for the suspension, but the action appears linked to the union’s criticism of the government’s security record nearly four years after taking power.“As the authorities curtail independent reporting, pro-government narratives increasingly dominate the information space,” said Binta Sidibé Gascon, president of Observatoire Kisal. “Pro-military authorities and social media activists have contributed to inflaming ethnic tensions, particularly through rhetoric that falsely conflates the entire Fulani community with Islamist armed groups, inciting stigmatization and hostility.”