Gabon's National Council for Communication (CNC) has suspended six independent newspapers for "violations of the principles of professional conduct and ethics," a CNC statement published Wednesday said.
Two other titles were "warned to respect the regulations," according to the statement published in the national daily l'Union.
"The Gabonese press unfortunately continues to pass on public rumours pell-mell, showing laziness about investigative journalism," the statement said.
"Gabonese media for the most part pass on rumours and become accomplices by amplifying them," the CNC added, singling out the six papers which it suspended on Tuesday.
The council also accused these papers of "venturing into ethnic division, insults and calumny."
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Norbert Ngoua Mezui, the founder and editorialist of Nkuu le Messager, a twice-weekly paper of "news and opinion", riposted that there had been "a dictatorial drift by the CNC."
"They ban six papers in one go and there are warnings. This is muzzling, it's a way of sweeping aside democratic expression," Mezui told AFP.
"In our case, we analysed the electoral process step by step, with all the disputes people know about (the contestation of the election results by the opposition). In the end, a son succeeds his
father, so why can't we say that it's a republican monarchy?"
Early in September, Ali Bongo Ondimba was elected president of the oil-rich equatorial African country in an election to replace his father Omar Bongo, who had ruled for 41 years and died in June.
Nkuu le Messager was banned from publication for a month over an article called "And the monarchy is installed in Gabon," which spoke of "a parody of democracy."
The bimonthly Les Echos du Nord, the satirical papers Le Scribouillard and Le Crocodile, as well as the newspapers L'Ombre and La Nation, were also among the banned papers. - Sapa-AFP
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