The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns this action as a blatant breach of press freedom and calls on the military junta to allow the media to perform its duties without any form of intimidation or harassment.

According to media reports, La Haute Autorité de la Communication (HAC), the Malian audio-visual regulatory authority, reacted, on 23 August, to comments made by military specialist Colonel Michel Goya during an LCI programme. The programme, called ‘Wagner decimated in Mali: The hand of Kyiv’, was broadcast on 27 July 2024.  The HAC said that the programme featured the LCI military consultant making alleged “denigrating remarks, gratuitous assertions and false accusations of exactions against the Malian armed forces and their Russian partners".

The HAC decided to suspend LCI's broadcasting operations for two months in Mali with effect from 23 August 2024.

The IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger, said that the HAC’s decision to suspend LCI for two months amounts to a blatant violation of press freedom and seriously affects media pluralism. "This decision reveals a systematic pattern of operation that is being utilised by the junta to silence independent media, especially foreign media operatives.  The reasons put forward for the suspension of LCI are baseless and unwarranted. The military junta in Mali must desist from its suspension strategies, let LCI to broadcast again immediately and allow independent media in Mali to operate without any form of intimidation and fear."

The federation recalls that RFI and France 24 were ‘permanently suspended’ in 2022, while the public television broadcaster France 2 was also suspended in 2024.