Media watchdog CPJ louds over Burkina journalist

• A prominent Burkina Faso journalist has received death threats, the Committee to Protect Journalists.
• Ahmed Newton Barry was targeted in an audio clip circulating among WhatsApp groups.
• The threat may be related to comments he made on a TV programme, Barry told the CPJ.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged Burkina Faso authorities to intervene after one of the country’s most prominent journalists received death threats.

According to the watchdog, Ahmed Newton Barry, a former TV president and ex-editor of L’Evenement newspaper who now works as a current affairs commentator, was targeted in an audio clip circulating among WhatsApp groups.

The speaker in the clip identifies Barry by name, describes him as a “terrorist” and says a hundred people would assault his home.

“We are going to set fire to it and then destroy everything and collect the rubble that is piled up and leave the ground vacant,” the clip says, according to the CPJ.

Barry told the CPJ the threat may be related to comments he made on a TV programme in which he described the Malian government as working with Russian mercenaries.

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Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa programme coordinator in Johannesburg, urged the authorities to carry out a thorough investigation and ensure Barry’s safety.

“The security of journalists in Burkina Faso is tenuous enough without their having to worry about a mob being provoked to attack their homes,” she said.

Local press associations have also condemned the threats and urged the country’s junta-ruled authorities to conduct an investigation.

Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, is in the grip of a nearly seven-year-old crisis triggered by jihadist raiders crossing from neighbouring Mali.

Thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million displaced.

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