The Norbert Zongo National Press Center (CNP-NZ) remains one of the last bastions of online freedom of expression under Ibrahim Traoré’s brutal dictatorship in Burkina Faso. But its leadership has been under attack.

Abdoulaye Diallo, the remaining coordinator of the CNP-NZ, has said that the organisation has effectively ceased operations since “the kidnapping of two of [his] colleagues.”

On March 24th, 2025, Guezouma Sanogo and Boukari Ouoba, president and vice president of the Association of Journalists of Burkina Faso, held a press conference at CNP headquarters. Sanogo called for answers following the disappearance of four other journalists; Serge Oulon, Adama Bayala, Kalifara Séré, and Alain Traoré.

Shortly after the meeting ended the two were arrested by National Security Council agents and their journalism association dissolved the next day.

The whereabouts of the two journalists remained unknown until online videos emerged of them appearing to have been conscripted into the army.

The video also includes Luc Pagbelguem, a journalist who disappeared after criticising Sanogo and Ouoba’s kidnapping.

These are not the first journalists to have experienced enforced conscription in Burkina Faso. Several other criminalised reporters have featured in military videos before; suddenly exhibiting jingoistic qualities and extreme veneration for Traoré’s regime. This tactic upholds the fundamental strategy of the regime – to parade the manufactured patriotism of his dissidents.

“Freedom of expression and of the press is completely muzzled in Burkina Faso,” Diallo continued.

“I was forced into exile over a year ago due to the fierce repression of Ibrahim Traoré’s tyrannical regime.

“All partners have suspended their support, and the situation is very complicated. We are three CNP-NZ leaders in exile, two kidnapped by the Traoré regime, and two others currently living in hiding because they received visits from Ibrahim Traoré’s death squads at their homes.

“This is the difficult situation we are experiencing. In our 27 years of existence, we have never experienced such digital repression.”

The decline of Burkina Faso’s press freedom comes hand-in-hand with the growth of digital repression.

Using data from Censored Planet, it is evident that the categories of news and human rights were the most aggressively blocked websites in the country.

Francophone news websites were frequently blocked – Radio France Internationale and France24, for example – while The Guardian and BBC were too.

Traoré’s regime has systematically expelled foreign journalists from the country and has begun orchestrating forced disappearances of its national journalists. As digital restrictions further limit access to information and truth, accountability towards the state has slipped away.

The Protocol first reached out to CNP-NZ to discuss the fight against the regime’s digital repression. Quickly, it became apparent that that battle was on pause.

Civil society organisations such as CNP-NZ are fundamental in delivering peace, press freedom, and digital rights, but how can they operate when threatened by this ultimatum; hide or pick up the gun?