Forbes Russia reporter arrested, Burkina Faso shuts radio stations

BBC and Voice of America’s broadcasting are suspended for a week.

MOSCOW (AFP) — Russia has arrested a journalist from the Russian edition of Forbes magazine over charges of spreading “false” information about Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine, his lawyer and Forbes said on Friday.

Journalist Sergei Mingazov, who faces 10 years in prison on the charges, was arrested in the Far Eastern Khabarovsk region for “reposting about the events in Bucha” on the Telegram social media platform, his lawyer Konstantin Bubon said, referring to a Kyiv suburb.

Meanwhile, Burkina Faso has suspended the

BBC and (VOA) radio networks from broadcasting for airing a rights report accusing the army of attacks on civilians in its battle against jihadists.

The British and United States radio stations are the latest international media organizations to be targeted since Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in the West African country in a September 2022 coup.

“The programs of these two international radio networks broadcasting from Ouagadougou have been suspended for a period of two weeks,” the communications authority or CSC announced late on Thursday.

It said the decision had been taken because BBC Africa and the VOA had aired and also published a report on their digital platforms “accusing the Burkina army of abuses against the civilian population.”

The CSC said the report contained “hasty and biased declarations without tangible proof against the Burkinabe army.”

International non-government organization Human Rights Watch said on Thursday soldiers in Burkina Faso’s jihadist-hit north had killed at least 223 villagers, including 56 children, in two revenge attacks on 25 February.