Burkinabe Human Rights Group Denounces Junta Mobilization of Civilians

Captain Ibrahim Traore, Burkina's transitional president who came to power in a September 2022 coup, declared in April a year-long "general mobilisation" to give authorities power to requisition "youth 18 years and older" if needed in the fight against jihadists.

The Burkinabe Movement for the Rights of Man and the People (MBDHP) said it learned "with indignation" that the ruling Patriotic Movement for Preservation and Restoration is "carrying out a massive and targeted requisition of citizens, by applying the general mobilisation decree."

These alleged requisitions were being imposed on members of trade unions and civil society groups, journalists, opposition politicians and others critical of the country's rulers, the MBDHP said.

Some 15 trade unions had called for a rally at the end of October to denounce the "restrictions on freedoms," but the protest was banned by the Ouagadougou mayor's office due to the "security contex."

A major conglomerate trade union, the CGT-B, in a statement Sunday also denounced the "arbitrary" requisitions and "the harassment of citizens who have expressed opinions critical of the transitional authorities".

It also condemned the general "punitive and selective application" of the mobilisation decree.

According to the MBDHP, the decree "was specially conceived and adopted not to contribute to the fight against terrorism, but to repress anyone expressing an opinion on the current management of our country."

In April, the United Action Union (UAS) demanded the release of people it claimed were "forcibly conscripted" in the Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland (VDP), a civilian force that supports the military.

Burkina Faso has been battling a jihadist insurgency, with affiliations to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, since it spilled over from neighbouring Mali in 2015, leaving more than 17,000 civilians and soldiers dead and displacing two million people.