Burkina Faso: the UPC is difficult the ban on its actions in court docket

The Union for Progress and Change (UPC), one of many important opposition events in Burkina Faso, has taken authorized motion to problem the ban on the holding of its political workplace, whereas the exercise of the events insurance policies has been suspended for the reason that coup d’etat of 30 September final.

The UPC had introduced that it wished to arrange a gathering of its political bureau on February 18. However final week, the Minister of Territorial Administration, Decentralization and Safety, Colonel Boukaré Zoungrana reminded the UPC by letter that the textual content “suspending the actions of political events” was nonetheless in power.

The minister refers to a communiqué signed by the transitional president, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, when he seized energy by a putsch on September 30, 2022, stipulating the suspension of “all political exercise” and “all exercise of the organizations of the civil society”.

In a press launch despatched to AFP on Wednesday, the UPC mentioned it had “determined to grab the competent courts in order that they rule on the query”, contemplating the minister’s response as “a ban on the social gathering from holding its exercise”.

One other opposition social gathering, the Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP), held a gathering of its political bureau on 28 January. 

Three days later, Minister Zoungrana despatched him a “warning letter”, once more recalling the suspension of the actions of political events nonetheless in power.

Earlier than the September 30, 2022 coup, Burkina Faso had been dominated since January by one other putschist soldier, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba. Political events didn’t then have the proper to arrange public conferences however might keep their actions.