On May 25, 2025, just hours after returning from an official mission to Kidal as part of the Minister of Defense’s delegation, Seydou Oumar Traoré was taken into custody by the Cybercrime Unit for allegedly insulting a foreign head of state, Guinea’s transitional President, General Mamady Doumbouya. His trial is scheduled for July 10, 2025.
In a video which went viral on social media, the journalist claimed that General Doumbouya had “betrayed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) by collaborating with Western countries to host terrorist bases on Guinean soil.”
In light of the legal proceedings and the threats he faced, Seydou Oumar Traoré issued a public apology to the President of Guinea in a video that also went viral on social media, delivered in the Dioula language.
The detention of Seydou Oumar Traoré is the second incident of detention being recorded in Mali since November 2024 over comments made about issues in other junta-led countries. On November 26, 2024, Malian private television station, Joliba TV, was suspended for six months over comments made about Burkina Faso’s President, Ibrahim Traoré, by a political activist, Issa Kaou N’Djim, during a political show. On his part, N’Djim, was found guilty of “publicly offending a foreign head of state” and was handed a two-year imprisonment sentence.
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is concerned about this emerging trend of gagging Malians from expressing their views about happenings in other military-led countries in the region, and urges the Malian authorities to put an end to it.