By Ghost Writer
Greetings, Your Excellency, President Évariste Ndayishimiye of the great Republic of Burundi.
Allow me, Sir, to interrupt your busy official engagements at Ntare House, the presidential palace in Gisenyi Village, Mutimbuzi Commune of Bujumbura Province. Or are you at your other presidential palace in the country’s political capital, Gitega, Sir?
Kindly permit me to bring to your attention an urgent matter of immense public concern, namely the deteriorating state of media freedom in Burundi. It is increasingly making your administration look a pariah on a global platform of civilized nations.
Mr President, Sir, just in case you have not been told, let me alert you that on Tuesday, January 13, 2026, the Ngozi High Court in northern Burundi sentenced journalist Sandra Muhoza to four years in prison. She was also ordered to pay a fine of 60 euros (200,000 Burundian francs) for allegedly “undermining the integrity of the national territory” and “racial aversion”. That sentence was nearly twice as long as the one a lower court had handed down to her (21 months) on December 16, 2024.
Your Excellency, it may interest you to remember that Sandra Muhoza, who works for a privately owned online outlet La Nova Burundi, was arrested on April 13, 2024. She was accused of sharing information on a journalists’ WhatsApp group about the alleged distribution of weapons by Burundian authorities to young people from the ruling party. Intriguingly, Sir, upon contesting the ruling, the Bujumbura-based Mukaza Court of Appeal declared itself incompetent to deal with the matter and referred the case back to the Ngozi High Court, effectively annulling the initial proceedings. However, Sandra Muhoza was not released. She was, instead, transferred to Ngozi Women’s Prison on September 26, 2025.
Your Excellency, Burundian prison authorities are said to have denied Sandra Muhoza medical care. Those who saw her at the Ngozi High Court on January 13 said she looked weak and used a crutch. Her lawyers, vowing to appeal the sentence, are calling for her unconditional acquittal. They are accusing the judge of misinterpreting the penal law, and that the facts did not match what is stated in the Burundian Penal Code. They opine that the journalist had not committed any offence, and there was no convincing evidence of guilt.
Mr President, your country ranks high globally among states with most repressive environments for media practice and public freedoms. Successive post-independence governments have used various unorthodox methods to visit fear on the society, independent-minded private media and journalists. Freedoms of expression guaranteed in the Constitution and the country’s press laws have been flagrantly disregarded. Consequently, several journalists have been killed, disappeared, jailed, or forced to run for their lives into exile.
Allow me, Your Excellency, to remind you of an important provision on personal freedoms in the Burundian Constitution, promulgated on June 7, 2018. Article 31 states: “Freedom of expression is guaranteed. The State respects freedom of religion, thought, conscience, and opinion.”
Back to Sandra Muhoza’s alleged WhatsApp share, Mr President, Sir. The United Nations and a host of local and international organisations have in the past fingered the ruling political party, the National Council for the Defence of Democracy – Forces for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) for arming groups outside the mainstream military and security forces, especially during electoral campaigns, and in the government’s battle against rebel outfits.
For example, Your Excellency, the then UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, reported on June 4, 2015 that his office had received claims that the Burundian government (under your predecessor President Pierre Nkurunziza) was arming a murderous youth group affiliated to CNDD-FDD known as Imbonerakure (Kirundi for “those who see far”) to fight political opponents. Mr President, Sir, you have neither publicly and unequivocally denounced Imbonerakure nor dissociated it with your government since you became the Head of State on June 18, 2020.
Lesson learnt? Your Excellency, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has lately ranked Burundi 125th out of 180 countries for press freedom. Sir, kindly apply your power of clemency to pardon Sandra Muhoza (as you did for Floriane Irangabiye in August 2024) and all jailed journalists to expand media and civil liberties in Burundi and uplift the country’s global image.
