Burkina Faso frees three journalists, two others held

Burkina Faso's military junta, which sprang a September 2022 coup led by Captain Ibrahim Traore, has regularly faced accusations of repressive measures against critics, including forced frontline enlistment to fight jihadist groups.

Recent months have seen authorities release around a dozen people abducted and forcibly mobilised, including journalists, civil society leaders or relatives of politicians -- but a new series of arrests resumed earlier this month.

The Aujourd'hui (Today) private daily Wednesday welcomed "good news" regarding its publishing director, Zowenmanogo Dieudonne Zoungrana, detained Tuesday at his home by National Intelligence Agency (ANR) agents. The paper said he had "regained his freedom".

The Observateur Paalga daily also said its editorial director Ousseni Ilboudo had been released after his detention Monday at the paper's offices.

A third journalist, Michel Nana, held early Monday, was also reported freed.

Sources told AFP that two other journalists were "questioned" by ANR agents late Tuesday, naming them as Lamine Traore, founder of online media Burkina Yawana, and Jean-Marie Toe, editor-in-chief of state daily Sidwaya.

Toe and Zoungrana participated in an interview late last month with Captain Traore marking three years since the coup.

There has been no official comment on the detentions, but sources close to the junta have alluded to an investigation into the leaking of coverage of the interview to an outlet critical of the military prior to its broadcast on national television on September 28.

Three Burkinabe appeals' court magistrates remain missing, believed abducted, since Friday, according to a judicial source.