Junta Forcibly Recruits Magistrates Prosecuting Staunch Supporters of the Junta Government

A new milestone has been reached in the repression of fundamental freedoms in Burkina Faso . Since Wednesday, August 14, five Burkinabe magistrates have been illegally detained by the military regime of Captain Ibrahim Traoré, and risk being forcibly sent to the front to fight against jihadist groups, according to several judicial and security sources. Two other magistrates are also threatened with the same fate.

All had been "requisitioned" on August 9 by the junta, according to the terminology used by the latter to describe the forced enrollment of discordant voices that it has been carrying out since coming to power in a putsch in September 2022. Consulted by Le Monde Afrique , some of the requisition orders sent in writing by the regime to these magistrates, including four prosecutors, two substitutes and an investigating judge, order them to "participate in operations to secure the territory" with a military unit in Kaya, in the north of the country, for a "renewable" period of three months, between August 14 and November 13.

The military authorities assert that the conscription orders are authorized under the April 13, 2023 "general mobilization," part of a plan to recapture territory lost to Islamist armed groups, which control large swaths of Burkina Faso. The plan seeks to create a "legal framework for all actions" against insurgents and gives the president extensive powers to combat the insurgency, including requisitioning people and goods and restraining civil liberties.

On August 13, a court in Bobo-Dioulasso, in western Burkina Faso, ruled that the requisition orders of the two of the seven magistrates from this city were "manifestly illegal" and violated "the fundamental freedoms of the persons concerned," and ordered the government not to carry them out.

In an August 15 statement, a coalition of three Burkinabè magistrates' unions said that the authorities had targeted the seven magistrates because they dealt with cases involving people "claiming to be staunch supporters of the current government." The union also said that "these requisitions are acts of humiliation and intimidation of magistrates" and that they are being carried out "despite judicial decisions declaring them null and void."