(Nairobi) – Burkina Faso’s military government is intensifying its sweeping crackdown on civil society through restrictive legislation, administrative pressure, and punitive actions targeting domestic and international organizations, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the World Organisation Against Torture within the Observatory for the Protection of Human Ri...
The military government of Burkina Faso is employing a multi-pronged strategy to dismantle civil society, using legal, administrative, and coercive measures to suppress dissent and independent oversight. The dissolution of 118 organizations under the guise of regulatory compliance is a textbook example of how authoritarian regimes weaponize bureaucracy to stifle opposition. The timing is particularly telling: the July 2025 law’s compliance deadline had not yet expired, yet the government acted p...