Junta Forces in Burkina Faso Intensifies Crackdown on Political Life and Civil Society.

Photo by @jorono on Pixabay.com 

The military government of Burkina Faso has significantly intensified its crackdown against civil society and its repression of political life. The junta, guided by the Burkinabe president Ibrahim Traoré, is utilising increasingly repressive strategies in the pursuit of its revolutionary objectives.

Captain Ibrahim Traoré appointed himself as the transitional president of Burkina Faso after a coup d’ètat ousting previous junta leader on September 2022. On April 1st, 2025, Traoré officially declared the Popular Progressive Revolution (RPP), aimed at ensuring the nation’s security, sovereignty and development.

Since these events, however, the junta has struggled to reach its security objectives. According to estimates, more than 60% of the country is now outside of government control. The territories that are under the junta’s control register a spike in violence against civilians, The Burkinabe security forces have been killing hundreds and forcibly displacing thousands of civilians, as well as carrying out an ethnic cleansing of the marginalised Fulani communities. The state of the economy and humanitarian conditions also continue to deteriorate. The government’s response has been the intensification of an information campaign aimed at swaying the people towards support for the junta. This is complemented by a system of de facto censorship, which silences any dissenting voice through punishment that can reach up to abduction, imprisonment or forceful drafting.

Part of the ideology of the Popular Progressive Revolution (RPP) is a rejection of democracy. This is seen first and foremost in Traoré’s own declarations. On the state broadcaster RTB, he has released declarations in which he states that “people must forget about democracy” and that “democracy kills”. Such rejection has not been kept relegated to words: the junta’s repressive actions against civil society and political life are a testament to it.

In a further move targeting the right of political dissent, the junta has dissolved all political parties by repealing the legislation governing them. Under the junta, political parties were already banned from holding public gatherings and many of their activities had been de facto suspended. The most recent provisions ban the parties from operating altogether and require their assets to be transferred to the state. Members of the government have accused the multiparty system of “"promoting division among citizens and weakening the social fabric".

The junta has also long targeted independent media as a further way of silencing dissent. Military authorities have suspended or expelled numerous media outlets. Most recently, the military government has targeted civil society more directly by dissolving 118 civil society organisations, numerous of which were devoted to human rights defense. The government has justified the move with vague references to administrative non-compliance.

Various human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, have called for the recognition of the junta’s crimes of violence against civilians and ethnic cleansing as crimes against humanity, and have been active in denouncing the political repression and silencing that has been a cornerstone of the junta’s government since their takeover.

written by Alessia Milillo