On 13 January, the Ngozi High Court in northern Burundi sentenced journalist Sandra Muhoza to four years of  “principal penal servitude” — four years’ jail time — and ordered her to pay a fine of 60 EUR (200,000 Burundian francs) for “undermining the integrity of the national territory” and “racial aversion”. According to one of her lawyers, Rémy Nsabimana, the journalist plans to file an appeal. “We accuse the judge of misinterpreting penal law: the facts do not match what is stipulated in the Burundian Penal Code. No offence has been committed and there is no convincing evidence of guilt, which should lead to an unconditional acquittal. Lodging an appeal is the only course of action,” he told RSF.

“Four years of imprisonment for Sandra Muhoza. This very harsh sentence imposed on a journalist who did nothing more than share a message in a WhatsApp group for news professionals shows the real intention of the judicial authorities: to continue treating journalism as a crime. Sandra Muhoza is currently the only female journalist who is arbitrarily detained in sub-Saharan Africa. She has been subjected to a lengthy and opaque procedure based on trumped up charges, which began in Bujumbura, the Burundian capital, before continuing in the city of Ngozi. This legal harassment, which has kept her behind bars since April 2024 and constitutes a denial of press freedom in the country – ranked 125th out of 180 countries and territories in the RSF World Press Freedom Index – must end. RSF calls for her immediate release.

Sandra Muhoza works for the online outlet La Nova Burundi. Accused of sharing information in a WhatsApp group for journalists about the alleged distribution of weapons by Burundian authorities to young people from the ruling party, she was arrested on 13 April 2024 in the city of Ngozi. She was transferred to Mpimba Central Prison in Bujumbura five days later.

On 16 December 2024, the journalist was sentenced to 21 months in prison for “undermining the integrity of the national territory” and “racial aversion”. Her defence team appealed against this decision, but the Mukaza Court of Appeal in Bujumbura, to which the case was referred, ultimately declared itself incompetent to rule on the judgment, referring the case back to the Ngozi High Court — the city where Sandra Muhoza lives and was arrested. This effectively annulled the initial proceedings. Despite this, she was not released and was transferred to Ngozi women’s prison on 26 September 2025.

The new proceedings initiated in Ngozi, which led to this harsh verdict of four years of imprisonment, reveal the various strategies put in place to keep the journalist in detention: an arbitrary arrest, trumped up charges, a lack of territorial jurisdiction, and four requests for provisional release refused despite the journalist’s fragile state of health.

In March 2025, RSF referred the case to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR)’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa.