Fully Authoritarian
World’s Population
Population
HRF classifies Burkina Faso as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Burkina Faso is a presidential republic. In September 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré seized power within the ruling junta, which had governed since a January coup earlier that year ousted the last elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. Since gaining independence in 1960, the country, formerly known as Upper Volta, has never experienced a peaceful transfer of power between elected leaders. Instead, it has faced repeated civil uprisings and multiple military coups, including the bloody 1987 coup that brought long-time ruler Blaise Compaoré to power. Since Compaoré’s ousting in 2014, the country has experienced three successful military coups and other foiled coup attempts, with an interlude of democratic rule. The inability of Kaboré’s government and French troops present in the country to stem worsening insecurity from a terrorist insurgency, which has claimed control over parts of the territory since 2015, led to the latest coups, the expulsion of foreign troops, and a new military regime.
National elections are absent in Burkina Faso, rendering moot assessment of electoral competition. Under Traoré, the ruling junta has centralized power by dissolving all institutions and suspending political parties’ activities. The return to civilian rule has been postponed to 2029.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The junta has issued suspension orders and outright bans for dissenting civil society organizations (CSOs) and foreign media outlets, censored journalists who independently report on the military’s anti-terrorism operations, and increased online policing. Critics have been subjected to forced conscriptions and abductions.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The legislature remains heavily controlled by the junta, which has also fundamentally restructured the judicial system. Regime officials have put in place accountability shields for themselves and forcibly conscripted magistrates who threaten their interests. They have also dissolved the electoral commission and entrusted the government with managing and overseeing future elections.
National elections are absent in Burkina Faso, rendering moot assessment of electoral competition. Following the establishment of military rule in 2022, the junta has dissolved all institutions, suspended political parties’ activities, and progressively extended the transitional period.
A democratically elected government was overthrown through a coup d’état. In January 2022, former President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was ousted by members of the armed forces led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. Nine months later, Damiba himself was removed in a second coup led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, one of the officers who had helped bring him to power. Leader of the center-left People’s Movement for Progress (MPP), Kaboré secured a second term in the November 2020 presidential election, obtaining approximately 57% of the valid national votes with a turnout of 50%. Despite some incidents of violence, the election was widely regarded as largely free and fair. On January 24, 2022, however, the military seized power, citing the government’s failure to contain the spread of Islamist violence across the country.
On September 30, 2022, soldiers dissatisfied with Damiba’s handling of the security situation peacefully removed Damiba and brought Captain Traoré to power. Traoré assumed leadership of the transitional military junta established after the January coup, known as the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR). Following the takeover, Traoré suspended the 1991 constitution, dissolved the government and the legislative assembly, and closed the country’s borders. In October 2024, the junta adopted a transitional charter setting the transition period at 21 months and granting Traoré authority to rule by decree until the establishment of a new transitional legislative assembly. One week after the adoption of the charter, Traoré was officially sworn in as interim president, pledging to hold elections in July 2024. However, two months prior to the official timeline was due to end, an amendment to the charter extended the transition by an additional 60 months and revised eligibility criteria to allow the transitional president to run in future elections.
The military junta has systematically and unfairly barred political parties. Shortly after seizing power, Traoré signed a decree suspending the activities of all political parties. In February 2023, regime officials prevented the Union for Progress and Change (UPC), a former member party of Kaboré’s presidential majority, from organizing a political bureau meeting. A month earlier, another opposition party, the Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP), received a formal warning from a government minister following a party gathering. In December 2023, the police anti-crime unit temporarily detained 21 members of the former ruling party, including former Minister of National Education Stanislas Ouaro.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Traoré’s regime has banned or suspended the activities of dissenting civil society organizations (CSOs) and foreign media outlets, censored journalists who attempt to expose military setbacks or crimes, and expanded state surveillance of social media. The junta has also used forced conscription and abductions to silence critics.
The MPSR has systematically and unfairly shut down independent and dissenting organizations. Since the coup, Traoré’s regime has banned or suspended the activities of CSOs and foreign media outlets, citing vague grounds or accusing them of supporting terrorist groups. In July 2025, the regime suspended, for three months, the International ONG Safety Organization (INSO), a Dutch CSO that monitors safety trends for humanitarian actors on the ground, for unauthorized data collection. In June 2024, the country’s media regulator, the Superior Council for Communication (CSC), suspended leading newspaper L’Événement for one month after it had published a story about an embezzlement scheme linked to the head of state and others. In April 2024, the same authority banned several foreign media outlets, including Deutsche Welle, TV5 Monde, Le Monde, the BBC, and Voice of America, from the national airwaves following their coverage of a Human Rights Watch report alleging the military was implicated in the execution of at least 223 civilians during a retaliatory campaign against Islamist militants in Yatenga province. Earlier, the junta accused two French broadcasters, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and France24, of allegedly supporting terrorism and suspended their license respectively in December 2022 and in March 2023.
The regime has systematically and seriously intimidated and obstructed the work of independent journalists, political leaders, civil society leaders, and members of the general public. The MSPR has used a sweeping emergency decree to forcibly conscript critics into military operations against militant Islamist groups across the country. Under the April 2023 “general mobilization” plan, the junta has abused its authority to requisition people and services, disproportionately targeting government critics by recruiting them in efforts to recapture territory lost to the insurgency since 2015. In November 2023, Rasmane Zinaba and Bassirou Badjo of the civil society group Balai Citoyen were among the ten trade union and political leaders notified of their conscription. This followed their organizations’ announcement of a protest in front of the Bourse du Travail in the capital city of Ouagadougou the previous October, opposing government restrictions on civil liberties. The decree has also targeted prominent figures, including human rights defender Gabin Korbégo and physician Arouna Louré, a staunch critic of the regime. Louré was requisitioned by army officers and sent to serve in the northern Yatenga province after publicly denouncing the junta’s mismanagement of the health system. In August 2024, the security forces further extended this practice by conscripting seven magistrates, including the prosecutor of the High Court in Ouagadougou, who had been involved in legal proceedings against junta supporters.
The junta has also censored and retaliated against journalists who attempt to independently report on the military’s anti-terrorism operations and expose setbacks or crimes. In March 2023, for example, two French journalists working for Libération and Le Monde, Agnès Faivre and Sophie Douce, were expelled from the country after publishing an investigation that implicated the Burkinabé army in the killing of children in the northern part of the country.
Under President Traoré, protests have been systematically and unfairly repressed. The junta has adopted strict regulations for CSOs and disproportionately favored pro-junta organizations in their ability to organize gatherings. In July 2025, state authorities enacted a new law on freedom of association that fundamentally restructures the functioning of CSOs. The law requires organizations to align with ministerial thematic priorities and increases state oversight by obliging them to submit annual budgets and financial statements to the relevant ministries. It also bars elected officials and party leaders from occupying leading positions within any association and grants local administrative authorities higher supervisory powers. This represents a step further in the junta’s oppositional stance toward dissenting organizations and civil society groups. In October 2022, a decree signed by Traoré prohibited all “demonstrations or calls for popular demonstrations that could lead to public order disturbances and undermine efforts to strengthen social cohesion.” In practice, however, this has been applied unevenly. The junta has cracked down on protests critical of its policies, such as the above-mentioned October 2023 gathering organized by Balai Citoyen and other trade unions, while allowing favorable demonstrations to proceed. For example, in June 2024, the National Coordination of Citizen Watch Associations (CNAVC), a pro-military CSO, was permitted to stage a demonstration outside the United Nations (UN) offices in Ouagadougou, denouncing what it described as false accusations by the UN that the Burkinabé army had committed exactions against civilians during its counter-terrorism operations.
Moreover, the censorship of dissenting speech has been systematic and unfair. The junta has particularly targeted foreign outlets and expanded state surveillance over social media. Since the enactment of a new law in November 2023, the junta has considerably expanded its influence on the country’s media regulator, the CSC, and used it to suspend broadcasting licenses of dissenting media outlets and TV programs, such as L’Événement and “7 Infos.” It has also banned the synchronization between domestic and international media in an effort to clamp down on outlets that offer alternative narratives or are accused of carrying “enemy propaganda.” The ban was announced after the CSC accused the Voice of America of demoralizing the country’s troops involved in the anti-terrorism operations and suspended the outlet for three months. The MSPR has also empowered the CSC to oversee the activity of social media users with a minimum of 5,000 followers and, in March 2024, announced penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment and fines of up to 3 million francs (approximately $5,000) for those individuals who publish or disseminate “inappropriate” content.
Finally, the military junta has systematically and forcibly disappeared dissidents. The MSPR has abducted dissidents and deployed them to the front lines without officially notifying them of their conscription. In June 2024, intelligence agents abducted three investigative journalists within just ten days. Serge Oulon, the editor of the investigative newspaper L’Événement, disappeared after armed men took him from his home. The individuals later went to his wife’s apartment and requisitioned his computer and phone. Kalifara Séré, a regular contributor to the private television station BF1, went missing a day after being summoned by the CSC regarding alleged defamatory comments he made about President Traoré during the “7 Infos” show on BF1. Adama Bayala, a regular on the BF1 program “Press Echos,” vanished shortly after leaving his university office. In October 2024, four months after their disappearance, junta representatives admitted during the 18th Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) in Banjul that the journalists had been enlisted into the army. While Séré and Bayala were freed respectively in July and September 2025, Oulon’s fate remains unknown as of year’s end.
In December 2023, seven men in plain clothes from the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) abducted Daouda Diallo, Secretary-General of the Collective Against Impunity and Stigmatization of Communities (CISC), as he walked to his car after renewing his travel documents at the passport office in Goughin, Ouagadougou. Diallo, recipient of the 2022 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, had been actively denouncing the abuses committed by the ruling MPSR and advocating for accountability within the armed forces. Before his abduction, he had already faced harassment from the authorities. Following his disappearance, he was held at an undisclosed location, and no information about his whereabouts was made available until February 2024, when images and videos surfaced showing Diallo engaged in military training. He had been sent to the battlefront without receiving formal notification of his conscription. He was released in March 2024.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The junta has maintained sizable influence over the country’s legislative body and substantially restructured the judicial system. Dissenting judges have been targeted, while new measures have been introduced to shield regime officials from accountability. The electoral commission has ceased to exist, with its powers transferred to the government.
The regime has systematically subjected legislative institutions to reforms that seriously weaken their operational independence. The junta has maintained a high degree of influence over the Transitional Legislative Assembly (ALT) to ensure alignment with its interests. Opened in November 2022, the ALT serves as the country’s unicameral legislature, replacing the older transitional body formed after the January coup. In accordance with the transitional charter, the assembly comprises 71 members selected among designated persons or groups. Notably, the head of state and the security and defense forces together appoint 36 members, over one-third of the total. The other seats are allocated among regional stakeholders, political party representatives, the civil society, and other groups. The president of the assembly is elected by its members during the inaugural session.
This composition allows the junta to retain considerable influence over the legislative process and secure sufficient support to pass favored legislation. In December 2023, the transitional government fast-tracked a major amendment to revise the 1991 constitution. The bill, which included a sweeping overhaul of the judicial system, was approved by the assembly with a three-quarters majority less than thirty days after its introduction. Final approval was granted by the Constitutional Council in January 2024, whose composition is entirely appointed by the head of state, amid criticism over the lack of meaningful public consultation. Another important legislative development occurred in December 2025, when the ALT granted the government one-year authorization to rule by decree on matters of national security. While officially intended to enable a more rapid response to the ongoing security emergency, this decision is likely to provide the government with freeway in using the forced conscription decree.
Judicial institutions have also undergone systematic reforms that seriously weaken their operational independence. The 2023 constitutional amendment introduced key changes that further politicize the justice system. First, it placed public prosecutors under the authority of the Minister of Justice, who is also empowered to recommend candidates for appointment to the Superior Council of the Magistrature (CSM), the body entrusted with appointing magistrates and overseeing disciplinary proceedings. The subordination of public prosecutors to a government minister risks undermining safeguards that enable them to pursue cases involving government officials and other individuals close to the regime. Second, it revised the composition of the CSM, which used to be predominantly made up of magistrates, by increasing the share of lay members to half of its total membership. Moreover, an organic law passed in April 2024 expanded the head of state’s appointment powers from one to three members. The amendment also barred members of the executive boards of justice-sector unions and associations from holding seats on the council. Critics have argued that this reconfiguration, justified by the government as a way to diminish corporativism within the council, is likely to tip the balance of power away from magistrates and heighten the risk of politicization.
Judicial and legislative institutions have systematically and frequently failed to hold regime officials accountable. The regime has made it increasingly difficult to prosecute high-level officials and shown little willingness to hold army officers accountable for abuses committed during counter-terrorism operations. Under the 2023 constitutional amendment, impeachment proceedings against the head of state may be initiated only for acts committed in an official capacity and limited to charges of high treason and embezzlement, whereas the 1991 constitution also encompassed cases of constitutional infringement. Moreover, legal proceedings against the president and government ministers are deferred until after they leave office. The court competent to try state authorities is the Criminal Chamber of the Ouagadougou Court of Appeal, composed of a panel of four parliamentary and three professional judges. The junta’s extensive influence over the ALT raises concerns regarding the panel’s impartiality.
Meanwhile, the junta has faced repeated accusations of violence and atrocities against civilians without being held accountable. In April 2024, Human Rights Watch reported that the military committed crimes against humanity during counter-terrorism operations in Yatenga province, resulting in the deaths of 223 civilians, including 56 children, one of the deadliest incidents of army abuse in the country since 2015. Despite calls for accountability, no judicial investigation has been initiated.
Members of the judicial branch, who are perceived as a threat to the regime, have faced systematic retaliation. The junta has used the forced conscription decree to target dissenting magistrates. In August 2024, the MPSR notified seven magistrates – four prosecutors, two deputy prosecutors, and one judge – of their conscription to participate in security operations for a renewable period of three months. Despite a ruling by the Bobo-Dioulasso Administrative Court declaring the conscription orders illegal, at least five of the seven magistrates were reportedly detained by the junta in an undisclosed location. Magistrates’ unions indicated that several of those targeted had handled cases involving individuals affiliated with the ruling junta, ruling against them in matters including enforced disappearances, illegal mining activities, and theft. Among those conscripted magistrates was the prosecutor of the High Court of Bobo-Dioulasso, who had ordered the arrest of a preacher seen close to the regime for inciting attacks against certain prosecutors and their property. The preacher was released shortly thereafter due to government pressure.
Finally, the regime has also systematically subjected independent oversight institutions to reforms that abolish their operational independence. In July 2025, the transitional government adopted a law disbanding the country’s electoral commission. The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), which had been responsible for managing and overseeing elections since 2001, was dissolved and its powers transferred to the interior minister. The government justified this decision by citing the commission’s financial cost and vulnerability to foreign interference. In practice, however, this reform grants the executive unchecked control over the organization of elections intended to mark the return to civilian rule, raising serious concerns about their credibility and fairness.
HRF classifies Burkina Faso as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Burkina Faso is a presidential republic. In September 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré seized power within the ruling junta, which had governed since a January coup earlier that year ousted the last elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. Since gaining independence in 1960, the country, formerly known as Upper Volta, has never experienced a peaceful transfer of power between elected leaders. Instead, it has faced repeated civil uprisings and multiple military coups, including the bloody 1987 coup that brought long-time ruler Blaise Compaoré to power. Since Compaoré’s ousting in 2014, the country has experienced three successful military coups and other foiled coup attempts, with an interlude of democratic rule. The inability of Kaboré’s government and French troops present in the country to stem worsening insecurity from a terrorist insurgency, which has claimed control over parts of the territory since 2015, led to the latest coups, the expulsion of foreign troops, and a new military regime.
National elections are absent in Burkina Faso, rendering moot assessment of electoral competition. Under Traoré, the ruling junta has centralized power by dissolving all institutions and suspending political parties’ activities. The return to civilian rule has been postponed to 2029.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The junta has issued suspension orders and outright bans for dissenting civil society organizations (CSOs) and foreign media outlets, censored journalists who independently report on the military’s anti-terrorism operations, and increased online policing. Critics have been subjected to forced conscriptions and abductions.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The legislature remains heavily controlled by the junta, which has also fundamentally restructured the judicial system. Regime officials have put in place accountability shields for themselves and forcibly conscripted magistrates who threaten their interests. They have also dissolved the electoral commission and entrusted the government with managing and overseeing future elections.
National elections are absent in Burkina Faso, rendering moot assessment of electoral competition. Following the establishment of military rule in 2022, the junta has dissolved all institutions, suspended political parties’ activities, and progressively extended the transitional period.
A democratically elected government was overthrown through a coup d’état. In January 2022, former President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was ousted by members of the armed forces led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. Nine months later, Damiba himself was removed in a second coup led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré, one of the officers who had helped bring him to power. Leader of the center-left People’s Movement for Progress (MPP), Kaboré secured a second term in the November 2020 presidential election, obtaining approximately 57% of the valid national votes with a turnout of 50%. Despite some incidents of violence, the election was widely regarded as largely free and fair. On January 24, 2022, however, the military seized power, citing the government’s failure to contain the spread of Islamist violence across the country.
On September 30, 2022, soldiers dissatisfied with Damiba’s handling of the security situation peacefully removed Damiba and brought Captain Traoré to power. Traoré assumed leadership of the transitional military junta established after the January coup, known as the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR). Following the takeover, Traoré suspended the 1991 constitution, dissolved the government and the legislative assembly, and closed the country’s borders. In October 2024, the junta adopted a transitional charter setting the transition period at 21 months and granting Traoré authority to rule by decree until the establishment of a new transitional legislative assembly. One week after the adoption of the charter, Traoré was officially sworn in as interim president, pledging to hold elections in July 2024. However, two months prior to the official timeline was due to end, an amendment to the charter extended the transition by an additional 60 months and revised eligibility criteria to allow the transitional president to run in future elections.
The military junta has systematically and unfairly barred political parties. Shortly after seizing power, Traoré signed a decree suspending the activities of all political parties. In February 2023, regime officials prevented the Union for Progress and Change (UPC), a former member party of Kaboré’s presidential majority, from organizing a political bureau meeting. A month earlier, another opposition party, the Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP), received a formal warning from a government minister following a party gathering. In December 2023, the police anti-crime unit temporarily detained 21 members of the former ruling party, including former Minister of National Education Stanislas Ouaro.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Traoré’s regime has banned or suspended the activities of dissenting civil society organizations (CSOs) and foreign media outlets, censored journalists who attempt to expose military setbacks or crimes, and expanded state surveillance of social media. The junta has also used forced conscription and abductions to silence critics.
The MPSR has systematically and unfairly shut down independent and dissenting organizations. Since the coup, Traoré’s regime has banned or suspended the activities of CSOs and foreign media outlets, citing vague grounds or accusing them of supporting terrorist groups. In July 2025, the regime suspended, for three months, the International ONG Safety Organization (INSO), a Dutch CSO that monitors safety trends for humanitarian actors on the ground, for unauthorized data collection. In June 2024, the country’s media regulator, the Superior Council for Communication (CSC), suspended leading newspaper L’Événement for one month after it had published a story about an embezzlement scheme linked to the head of state and others. In April 2024, the same authority banned several foreign media outlets, including Deutsche Welle, TV5 Monde, Le Monde, the BBC, and Voice of America, from the national airwaves following their coverage of a Human Rights Watch report alleging the military was implicated in the execution of at least 223 civilians during a retaliatory campaign against Islamist militants in Yatenga province. Earlier, the junta accused two French broadcasters, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and France24, of allegedly supporting terrorism and suspended their license respectively in December 2022 and in March 2023.
The regime has systematically and seriously intimidated and obstructed the work of independent journalists, political leaders, civil society leaders, and members of the general public. The MSPR has used a sweeping emergency decree to forcibly conscript critics into military operations against militant Islamist groups across the country. Under the April 2023 “general mobilization” plan, the junta has abused its authority to requisition people and services, disproportionately targeting government critics by recruiting them in efforts to recapture territory lost to the insurgency since 2015. In November 2023, Rasmane Zinaba and Bassirou Badjo of the civil society group Balai Citoyen were among the ten trade union and political leaders notified of their conscription. This followed their organizations’ announcement of a protest in front of the Bourse du Travail in the capital city of Ouagadougou the previous October, opposing government restrictions on civil liberties. The decree has also targeted prominent figures, including human rights defender Gabin Korbégo and physician Arouna Louré, a staunch critic of the regime. Louré was requisitioned by army officers and sent to serve in the northern Yatenga province after publicly denouncing the junta’s mismanagement of the health system. In August 2024, the security forces further extended this practice by conscripting seven magistrates, including the prosecutor of the High Court in Ouagadougou, who had been involved in legal proceedings against junta supporters.
The junta has also censored and retaliated against journalists who attempt to independently report on the military’s anti-terrorism operations and expose setbacks or crimes. In March 2023, for example, two French journalists working for Libération and Le Monde, Agnès Faivre and Sophie Douce, were expelled from the country after publishing an investigation that implicated the Burkinabé army in the killing of children in the northern part of the country.
Under President Traoré, protests have been systematically and unfairly repressed. The junta has adopted strict regulations for CSOs and disproportionately favored pro-junta organizations in their ability to organize gatherings. In July 2025, state authorities enacted a new law on freedom of association that fundamentally restructures the functioning of CSOs. The law requires organizations to align with ministerial thematic priorities and increases state oversight by obliging them to submit annual budgets and financial statements to the relevant ministries. It also bars elected officials and party leaders from occupying leading positions within any association and grants local administrative authorities higher supervisory powers. This represents a step further in the junta’s oppositional stance toward dissenting organizations and civil society groups. In October 2022, a decree signed by Traoré prohibited all “demonstrations or calls for popular demonstrations that could lead to public order disturbances and undermine efforts to strengthen social cohesion.” In practice, however, this has been applied unevenly. The junta has cracked down on protests critical of its policies, such as the above-mentioned October 2023 gathering organized by Balai Citoyen and other trade unions, while allowing favorable demonstrations to proceed. For example, in June 2024, the National Coordination of Citizen Watch Associations (CNAVC), a pro-military CSO, was permitted to stage a demonstration outside the United Nations (UN) offices in Ouagadougou, denouncing what it described as false accusations by the UN that the Burkinabé army had committed exactions against civilians during its counter-terrorism operations.
Moreover, the censorship of dissenting speech has been systematic and unfair. The junta has particularly targeted foreign outlets and expanded state surveillance over social media. Since the enactment of a new law in November 2023, the junta has considerably expanded its influence on the country’s media regulator, the CSC, and used it to suspend broadcasting licenses of dissenting media outlets and TV programs, such as L’Événement and “7 Infos.” It has also banned the synchronization between domestic and international media in an effort to clamp down on outlets that offer alternative narratives or are accused of carrying “enemy propaganda.” The ban was announced after the CSC accused the Voice of America of demoralizing the country’s troops involved in the anti-terrorism operations and suspended the outlet for three months. The MSPR has also empowered the CSC to oversee the activity of social media users with a minimum of 5,000 followers and, in March 2024, announced penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment and fines of up to 3 million francs (approximately $5,000) for those individuals who publish or disseminate “inappropriate” content.
Finally, the military junta has systematically and forcibly disappeared dissidents. The MSPR has abducted dissidents and deployed them to the front lines without officially notifying them of their conscription. In June 2024, intelligence agents abducted three investigative journalists within just ten days. Serge Oulon, the editor of the investigative newspaper L’Événement, disappeared after armed men took him from his home. The individuals later went to his wife’s apartment and requisitioned his computer and phone. Kalifara Séré, a regular contributor to the private television station BF1, went missing a day after being summoned by the CSC regarding alleged defamatory comments he made about President Traoré during the “7 Infos” show on BF1. Adama Bayala, a regular on the BF1 program “Press Echos,” vanished shortly after leaving his university office. In October 2024, four months after their disappearance, junta representatives admitted during the 18th Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) in Banjul that the journalists had been enlisted into the army. While Séré and Bayala were freed respectively in July and September 2025, Oulon’s fate remains unknown as of year’s end.
In December 2023, seven men in plain clothes from the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) abducted Daouda Diallo, Secretary-General of the Collective Against Impunity and Stigmatization of Communities (CISC), as he walked to his car after renewing his travel documents at the passport office in Goughin, Ouagadougou. Diallo, recipient of the 2022 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, had been actively denouncing the abuses committed by the ruling MPSR and advocating for accountability within the armed forces. Before his abduction, he had already faced harassment from the authorities. Following his disappearance, he was held at an undisclosed location, and no information about his whereabouts was made available until February 2024, when images and videos surfaced showing Diallo engaged in military training. He had been sent to the battlefront without receiving formal notification of his conscription. He was released in March 2024.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The junta has maintained sizable influence over the country’s legislative body and substantially restructured the judicial system. Dissenting judges have been targeted, while new measures have been introduced to shield regime officials from accountability. The electoral commission has ceased to exist, with its powers transferred to the government.
The regime has systematically subjected legislative institutions to reforms that seriously weaken their operational independence. The junta has maintained a high degree of influence over the Transitional Legislative Assembly (ALT) to ensure alignment with its interests. Opened in November 2022, the ALT serves as the country’s unicameral legislature, replacing the older transitional body formed after the January coup. In accordance with the transitional charter, the assembly comprises 71 members selected among designated persons or groups. Notably, the head of state and the security and defense forces together appoint 36 members, over one-third of the total. The other seats are allocated among regional stakeholders, political party representatives, the civil society, and other groups. The president of the assembly is elected by its members during the inaugural session.
This composition allows the junta to retain considerable influence over the legislative process and secure sufficient support to pass favored legislation. In December 2023, the transitional government fast-tracked a major amendment to revise the 1991 constitution. The bill, which included a sweeping overhaul of the judicial system, was approved by the assembly with a three-quarters majority less than thirty days after its introduction. Final approval was granted by the Constitutional Council in January 2024, whose composition is entirely appointed by the head of state, amid criticism over the lack of meaningful public consultation. Another important legislative development occurred in December 2025, when the ALT granted the government one-year authorization to rule by decree on matters of national security. While officially intended to enable a more rapid response to the ongoing security emergency, this decision is likely to provide the government with freeway in using the forced conscription decree.
Judicial institutions have also undergone systematic reforms that seriously weaken their operational independence. The 2023 constitutional amendment introduced key changes that further politicize the justice system. First, it placed public prosecutors under the authority of the Minister of Justice, who is also empowered to recommend candidates for appointment to the Superior Council of the Magistrature (CSM), the body entrusted with appointing magistrates and overseeing disciplinary proceedings. The subordination of public prosecutors to a government minister risks undermining safeguards that enable them to pursue cases involving government officials and other individuals close to the regime. Second, it revised the composition of the CSM, which used to be predominantly made up of magistrates, by increasing the share of lay members to half of its total membership. Moreover, an organic law passed in April 2024 expanded the head of state’s appointment powers from one to three members. The amendment also barred members of the executive boards of justice-sector unions and associations from holding seats on the council. Critics have argued that this reconfiguration, justified by the government as a way to diminish corporativism within the council, is likely to tip the balance of power away from magistrates and heighten the risk of politicization.
Judicial and legislative institutions have systematically and frequently failed to hold regime officials accountable. The regime has made it increasingly difficult to prosecute high-level officials and shown little willingness to hold army officers accountable for abuses committed during counter-terrorism operations. Under the 2023 constitutional amendment, impeachment proceedings against the head of state may be initiated only for acts committed in an official capacity and limited to charges of high treason and embezzlement, whereas the 1991 constitution also encompassed cases of constitutional infringement. Moreover, legal proceedings against the president and government ministers are deferred until after they leave office. The court competent to try state authorities is the Criminal Chamber of the Ouagadougou Court of Appeal, composed of a panel of four parliamentary and three professional judges. The junta’s extensive influence over the ALT raises concerns regarding the panel’s impartiality.
Meanwhile, the junta has faced repeated accusations of violence and atrocities against civilians without being held accountable. In April 2024, Human Rights Watch reported that the military committed crimes against humanity during counter-terrorism operations in Yatenga province, resulting in the deaths of 223 civilians, including 56 children, one of the deadliest incidents of army abuse in the country since 2015. Despite calls for accountability, no judicial investigation has been initiated.
Members of the judicial branch, who are perceived as a threat to the regime, have faced systematic retaliation. The junta has used the forced conscription decree to target dissenting magistrates. In August 2024, the MPSR notified seven magistrates – four prosecutors, two deputy prosecutors, and one judge – of their conscription to participate in security operations for a renewable period of three months. Despite a ruling by the Bobo-Dioulasso Administrative Court declaring the conscription orders illegal, at least five of the seven magistrates were reportedly detained by the junta in an undisclosed location. Magistrates’ unions indicated that several of those targeted had handled cases involving individuals affiliated with the ruling junta, ruling against them in matters including enforced disappearances, illegal mining activities, and theft. Among those conscripted magistrates was the prosecutor of the High Court of Bobo-Dioulasso, who had ordered the arrest of a preacher seen close to the regime for inciting attacks against certain prosecutors and their property. The preacher was released shortly thereafter due to government pressure.
Finally, the regime has also systematically subjected independent oversight institutions to reforms that abolish their operational independence. In July 2025, the transitional government adopted a law disbanding the country’s electoral commission. The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), which had been responsible for managing and overseeing elections since 2001, was dissolved and its powers transferred to the interior minister. The government justified this decision by citing the commission’s financial cost and vulnerability to foreign interference. In practice, however, this reform grants the executive unchecked control over the organization of elections intended to mark the return to civilian rule, raising serious concerns about their credibility and fairness.
