Burkina Faso Accuses French Channel of Collaborating with Al-Qaeda

The military government of Burkina Faso suspended the broadcast of France 24 in the country on Monday following a report aired by the French television channel that included an interview with the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which is Al-Qaeda's branch in North Africa. In a statement by Burkina Faso's Minister of Communication, Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo, it was mentioned that due to conducting an interview with the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, "France 24 is not only acting as a mouthpiece for these terrorists but, worse, it is providing a platform to legitimize terrorist acts and hate speech." Earlier this month, France 24 aired a 20-second audio clip from an interview with Yezid Mebarek, also known as Abu Obeida Youssef al-Anabi, who declared himself "the Emir of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" in 2020 following the killing of his predecessor in a French attack. France 24, state-funded, stated that the decision is based on "unfounded accusations." The channel added in a statement, "The channel did not give him the opportunity to speak directly," emphasizing that it only chose to report what the interviewee said through a studio dialogue with one of its journalists. In December, Ouagadougou also halted the broadcast of Radio France Internationale, another station funded by the French government, citing false reports and giving a voice to radical Islamists. Relations between Paris and Ouagadougou have sharply deteriorated since Burkina Faso's army seized power in a coup last October. In January, Burkina Faso gave France one month to withdraw its troops and terminated a military agreement that allowed French forces to combat extremists, including on its territory.