By Abdoulaye Massalatchi
NIAMEY, July 1 (Reuters) - Authorities in Niger have banned a newspaper for three months and given formal warnings to three others for "demoralising the troops" with their reporting on attacks by rebels in the country's remote north.
Officials said the state communication council (CSC), charged with regulating the media in the West African nation, had suspended the fortnightly Air Info newspaper, based in the northern town of Agadez, the heart of the rebel region.
It had also issued formal warnings to three weekly newspapers in the capital Niamey -- Liberation, Evenement and Opinions -- on the same charges of inciting violence and demoralising government forces.
Air Info dedicated its latest edition to coverage of an attack by the rebel Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ), which killed 15 soldiers and took dozens hostage just over a week ago in Tazerzait, a remote settlement around a well in the Sahara desert near the Algerian and Malian borders.
Liberation published in full statements from the MNJ's Website (m-n-j.blogspot.com) claiming the attack and announcing the start of a new rebellion.
The government refuses to recognise the MNJ.
"The CSC decision is a grave threat to freedom of information because it aims simply to intimidate us, to stop us from covering the events in the north," Ahmed Raliou, director of Agadez-based private radio station Sahara, told Reuters.
Niger has a poor record on press freedom. Watchdogs have in the past accused it of using strict media laws to settle scores with journalists who expose corruption or criticise the government by jailing them or banning their organisations.
The north has long been a hotbed of dissent, largely beyond government control, full of disillusioned, unemployed youths and awash with arms left over from an uprising by Tuareg, Arab and Toubou nomads in the 1990s.
Most of those rebel groups accepted peace deals in 1995 but the MNJ says the government has not lived up to its promises, failing to integrate former fighters and leaving the north economically marginalised and rife with insecurity.
At least 33 soldiers have been killed in the north since the MNJ launched its campaign in February. But President Mamadou Tandja's government refuses to use the word rebellion, saying the attackers are drug traffickers and common criminals.
Around a dozen political parties called on Saturday for hostilities to cease and for the government to open dialogue with the MNJ, adding to calls last week from the second party in the governing coalition for a team of mediators to be set up.
A week ago, the president of the CSC told journalists not to become apologists for the group, saying that by taking up arms they had become enemies of the nation and were no longer to be considered as fellow citizens.
