This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A “witch hunt” to eradicate Burundi’s independent media is escalating, observers say, making it impossible to report on the ongoing political crisis.



This month the government publicly listed the names of seven journalists currently living in exile and demanded they be repatriated for their alleged role in a recent coup attempt.

Burundi: how to stop the bloodshed and avert civil war Read more

Clea Kahn-Sriber from Reporters Without Borders described the demands as a clear attack on people “who were just doing their jobs” by covering the recent violence.



“The government is rejecting any peacekeeping mission and insists the situation is normal,” Kahn-Sriber said. “But what kind of normality accepts the disappearance of all independent media?”

Violence broke out in April last year in response to president Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term in office. Since then, the UN has registered at least 439 deaths and the exodus of more than 237,000 refugees.

In this climate of fear and intimidation, journalists who refuse to align themselves with forces loyal to the president have faced a campaign of censorship, intimidation and physical violence.

Matters were made worse in May when an attempted coup was announced by plotters on African Public Radio, a local independent radio station. Since then, journalists say they have faced retaliatory attacks, forcing at least 100 to flee to neighbouring countries.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Radio RPA was bombed in May after coup plotters announced their plans to overthrow government live on air. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The government’s response to the widespread opposition from the Burundian public has been violent, with testimonies from witnesses and human rights organisations pointing to evidence of arbitrary detention, systematic torture and assassinations.

When the attempted coup failed, the government held disputed elections that saw Nkurunziza and his CNDD-FDD party sweep to victory.

With his power restored the president’s inaugural speech in October warned civil society against further political interference, followed by a series of ominous tweets.

Pierre Nkurunziza (@pnkurunziza) No one living abroad should consider himself superior to those who stayed in #Burundi, since most of them have left their families here.

Clampdown

Radio is the main way Burundians gain information about the day’s events, and it’s particularly popular for the majority of the population who live in rural areas where literacy is low and access to the internet is nearly non-existent.

So when four of the main radio stations were attacked during the height of the violence, a source of reliable news was cut off leaving misinformation and fear to fill the void.

Government ministers blamed coup participants for the disruption, but eyewitnesses accounts lay the blame with government security agents.

“It’s incredibly challenging for journalists now in Burundi, and of course many are simply not able to operate,” Rachel Nicholson, a researcher focusing on Burundi at Amnesty International, recently told Foreign Policy. “The clampdown on the media is creating a worrying news vacuum and denies Burundians the free access to information that they have a right to.”

Nine months later the stations – Radio-Télé Renaissance, Radio Publique Africaine (RPA), Radio Isanganiro and Bonesha FM – are still off the air, and each of their directors have appeared on the government’s recent extradition list.

The country has now also been left with just one operational newspaper still reporting through the crisis, as others fold to escape ongoing threats.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Burundi’s president Pierre Nkurunziza greets journalists in Bujumbura in May. Photograph: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

Exile

Once part of a lively independent media scene heralded as a post-war success, reporters are now considered “enemies” or “munwa muremure” – meaning “big-mouths”.

“Since 2013 we have been warned about the encroaching crackdown but we could never have imagined that the government had developed a plan for the total destruction of the media,” said Bob Rugurika from Radio Public Africa, who was interviewed in exile in July.

Burundi: 87 killed in worst violence since April coup attempt Read more

A month before the election last year, the director of independent newspaper Iwacu, Antoine Kaburahe, said he was committed to safeguarding the outlet’s “small window of liberty” but, by November, he too was forced into exile in Belgium.

Speaking in January, Iwacu’s editor-in-cheif, Léandre Sikuyavuga, said the role of journalism had become more important in Burundi than ever: “Our responsibility is now very big, since we are trying to fill the gap, trying to speak for those [media outlets that] were burned down.”

A version of this article first appeared on Global Voices



