Niger's privately owned press on Monday started a week-long strike to protest a presidential decree that allows sanctions against the media without warning, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. "The strike is on and it is being well followed," Boubacar Diallo of the Niger Association of Independent Press Editors (ANEPI) told AFP.
The three main dailies —L'Enqueteur, Le Canard Dechaine and la Griffe —are off the newsstands. Independent radio and television stations will join the strike for one day, on Tuesday.
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President Mamadou Tandja, pushing his controversial bid to stay in power after his mandate expires in December, had on July 8 issued a decree granting sweeping powers to the head of Niger's national media regulatory agency to unilaterally deal with the media as he see fit. The new powers allow the head of the agency to censor without any warning, any information deemed to endanger the state security or public order. Hirtherto, the agency's decisions were based on consensus among its 11 members.
In a statement last week, six independent newspapers said the strike action was an attempt to demand an "abrogation of that wicked decision". Ali Abdou, director of Niger's popular radio Anfani said under the new law, the mere existence of the media in Niger has come under threat.
