Malian journalist in prison awaiting trial for offending Niger’s military leader

Dakar, February 6, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Malian authorities to immediately release Youssouf Sissoko, who was detained on Thursday for publishing a commentary piece criticizing neighboring Niger’s president’s comments about a jihadist attack.

“In recent years, Malian authorities have drastically reduced the media’s ability to criticize their actions and they are now broadening that approach to include their partners, Niger and Burkina Faso, in the Alliance of Sahel States, where independent journalism is more fragile than ever,” said Moussa Ngom, CPJ’s Francophone Africa representative. “Youssouf Sissoko should be immediately released and the charges against him dropped.”

On February 5, a prosecutor with Mali’s cybercrime unit charged Sissoko, publishing director of the privately owned weekly L’Alternance, with spreading false news, undermining the state’s credibility, and offending a foreign head of state. He is due to stand trial on March 9, according to The Association of Private Press Publishers of Mali (ASSEP) and news reports.

On February 2, political analyst Sambou Sissoko wrote a commentary in L’Alternance, which said that Niger’s President Abdourahamane Tiani was likely “lying deliberately” or “his intelligence services are abysmally incompetent.” Tiani, who overthrew Niger’s elected government in 2023, had alleged that the leaders of France, Benin, and Ivory Coast had sponsored “mercenaries” to attack a military base in Niger’s capital, Niamey.

“We have listened to them bark enough; they, in turn, should prepare to listen to us roar,” said Tiani.

Benin and Ivory Coast said they had no role in the attack, which was later claimed by the Islamic State in the Sahel,  which is active Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.

In January, Mali banned the French newspaper Jeune Afrique over its “unfounded allegations” about Alliance of Sahel States’ authorities. Several journalists have been arrested or expelled and multiple media outlets have been suspended in Mali since a coup in 2020.

CPJ’s calls to request comment from Mali’s cybercrime unit were not answered.