Zambia’s largest private daily, The Post, shut two days ago over a tax row, has continued publishing.

Newspaper copies were being sold on the streets of the capital Lusaka on Thursday with its reporters operating outside the office premises.

The paper said it was being targeted for its “editorial independence and political views”.

The Zambia Revenue Authorities (ZRA) shut the newspaper in the capital Lusaka.

The tax agency was demanding that the company pays a total of $6.1 million disputed tax arrears immediately.

The newspaper management says the amount being demanded was paid almost in total, but a ZRA officer responded that they had not yet accessed the money and thus they could not withdraw the warrant of distress.

Opposition parties and civil society have raised alarm over the closure ahead of the August 11 General Election saying it an abuse of press freedom.

Zambian opposition parties staged a walk to the newspaper's head office in protest of the government's decision.

At the printing plant, ZRA officers switched off the printing press, locked up the premises, leaving heavily armed police officers in charge.

The newspaper, established in 1991 has been critical of successive regimes, including current President Edgar Lungu, with several of them moving to shut the newspaper or slapping charges on its editor-in-chief Mr Fred M’membe and its journalists.