On February 5, 2026, a prosecutor with Mali’s cybercrime unit charged Youssouf 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. The charges relate to Sissoko publishing a commentary piece criticizing neighboring Niger’s president’s comments about a jihadist attack.
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 that was later claimed by the Islamic State in the Sahel, which is active Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
Sissoko is due to stand trial on March 9, according to the Association of Private Press Publishers of Mali (ASSEP).
Several journalists have been arrested or expelled and multiple media outlets have been suspended in Mali since a coup in 2020.
CPJ’s early February 2026 calls to request comment from Mali’s cybercrime unit were not answered.