RSF says new tax law threatens private press

The Paris-based press watchdog Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) on Monday asked the president of Niger's national assembly to explain the recent adoption of a new law which will considerably increase the tax bill of the private press. "This law multiplies exponentially the tax bill of small private press organisations. We fear that that it will lead to the de-facto disappearance of several smaller newspapers," RSF's secretary-general Robert Menard said in his letter to Mahamene Ousmane. RSF hopes, Menard added, that this legislation, adopted by parliament on 20 November, is not a new way of censoring the press in Niger. RSF's appeal coincided with the start of a week-long strike in the capital Niamey by the private press in protest at the adoption of the law and attempts by the authorities to "silence the independent media," RSF reported a communique issued by the press corps as saying.