Burundi : the CNC, regulatory body or oppressor?

Four local radio stations prevented from creating media synergy on the new press law, the warning against the Iwacu press group or the ban on Bonesha Fm radio from rebroadcasting a program, the CNC, National Council of Communication has become a tool of repression of power instead of its mission of “regulator”. Journalists fear more crushing actions on the eve of the elections. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The topic of the four private and/or independent radio stations was the bill amending the press law of 2018. The four media : Isanganiro, Bonesha Fm, Rema Fm and Shima Fm were refused to cover this topic. The National Communication Council, CNC, explained that it is not yet time to make a comment “on a law not yet promulgated by the President of the Republic.”

The news comes the day before the synergy : Wednesday June 5, 2024. The four radio stations were already ready to tackle the topic because they had been preparing for it for more than a week. The CNC gives as its only reason that there is not enough material even though parliament has already adopted the bill. The journalists are surprised.

“It’s strange that the CNC prohibits us from working on a topic that is close to our hearts. And besides, there is nothing new because it has already sparked comments from everyone,” says an angry colleague. Colleagues are thinking of a way to muzzle the press on the eve of the next elections (the 2025 legislative elections).

“This is not a good sign at all. The regulatory body which should guarantee us support in everything we do has become the first to prevent us from working freely”, regrets another colleague who thinks that if things continue like this, journalists will no longer have the courage to exercise their profession in complete independence.

This is not the only topic rejected by the CNC when it comes to a request to process information in synergy without valid reason except that it is inappropriate, add leaders of journalists’ associations.

“Some of the journalists are even threatened to their faces through conversations or receive anonymous messages reminding them that a good journalist is a living journalist,” laments a colleague who was the victim of such intimidation.

During this week, the same body banned Bonesha Fm radio from rebroadcasting a program. It concerned the delay in the adoption of the budget law, fiscal year 2024-2025. Two opponents including Agathon Rwasa, contested traditional CNL leader who was ousted by some of his party officials at the beginning of last March with the complicity of the ruling CNDD-FDD party, according to him, and Gabriel Rufyiri, representative of the Observatory for the fight against corruption and economic embezzlement, a local organization very critical of the economic abuses of Gitega’s power.

“The CNC explained to us that the program cannot be rebroadcast while the law has not yet been adopted and promulgated,” a manager of the medium told SOS Médias Burundi. The program is broadcast every Saturday and Sunday and rebroadcast on Tuesday and Wednesday, successively in the local language Kirundi and in French.

Self-censorship is already taking hold among media professionals who find the future of the journalism profession in Burundi uncertain.

After the 2015 crisis born from another controversial term of the late President Pierre Nkurunziza which pushed around a hundred journalists into exile, the Burundian media are still struggling to “regain their independence” in a country that was once a model for media freedom.