Led AES Are Building a Censorship Cartel in the Region
Military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are increasingly restricting information and suppressing dissent as they battle regional terrorist groups. The report highlights a surge in violence by JNIM militants and the subsequent crackdown on media and civil society in the Sahel region.
Why it matters
The erosion of press freedom in the Sahel complicates international efforts to track human rights abuses and understand the evolving security crisis in West Africa.
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger’s military juntas are weaponising decrees and building a Sahel where truth is contraband
June 2024 arrived in Mali like a merciless visitor. As the once empty sky gathered its grey armies of cloud over the Sahelian nation while the metallic clack of hoes against the earth announced the return of the farming season, terror struck the greater Mopti region.
From that period until November of the same year, Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) waged a sustained, widespread, aggressive terror raid against local populations.
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