The three-month suspension was announced following BBC reports about a jihadist attack in the Tillaberi region on Tuesday, 10 December, in which 90 soldiers and at least 50 civilians were said to have been killed by the jihadists.
The Junta had called the BBC report 'baseless assertions and a campaign of intoxication orchestrated by adversaries of the Nigerien people, aimed at undermining the morale of the troops and sowing division'.
Radio stations that rebroadcast BBC programmes were also asked to 'suspend' their BBC broadcasted programmes. Popular BBC programmes, including those broadcasted in the Hausa language, the most widely spoken language in the country, are rebroadcast through local radio stations.
IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger condemned the junta's "pattern of repression against media houses, most especially foreign media in order to ensure that reports emanating from the confrontations with the jihadist do not reach the majority of the population". 'The Junta must allow media houses that have access to information concerning the activities of the army and the jihadists to report freely without fear or favour based on the public interest. Anything short of this will only be seen as a deliberate attempt to stifle information and to deny citizens their right to seek and impart information."
The IFJ has called for the immediate lifting of the suspension of the BBC and calls on the Junta to allow all foreign media houses as well as the local media that want to report on the activities of the Jihadist to continue to do their work without any form of hindrance.
