Djibouti

Djibouti’s media regime continues to be governed by Loi n°2/AN/92/2émL of 15 September 1992 on the freedom of communication, a text now in force for more than three decades and never substantially reformed. Operational regulation is handled by the Commission Nationale de la Communication (CNC), created in 2017 and currently chaired by Ali Mohamed Dimbio (succeeding founding president Ouloufa Ismail Abdo, now Minister of Social Affairs). Supervisory authority rests with the Ministry of Communication, Posts and Telecommunications (MCPT), led since May 2021 by Radwan Abdillahi Bahdon.

Djibouti’s state-media architecture is exceptionally consolidated. Four outlets cover the entire domestic landscape: RTD for radio and television; La Nation for French print; Al-Qarn for Arabic print; and ADI as the upstream news agency whose feed propagates across the other three. No private domestic broadcaster has ever been licensed, and Reporters Without Borders describes the country as one where “no independent media outlet is based.”

The 2026 update cycle is dominated by the 10 April 2026 presidential election, in which President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, in office since 1999, was re-elected for a sixth consecutive term with 97.81% of the vote (97.01% per the Constitutional Council), following a November 2025 constitutional amendment lifting the 75-year age limit. State media coverage was correspondingly saturative. Djibouti’s RSF rank fell eight places to 167/180 in 2025, placing the country in the “very serious” red category.

Media Profiles