(CEHURDES/IFEX) – CEHURDES condemns the arrest of a journalist by the security forces. Furthermore, CEHURDES continues to urge the authorities to respect the universal mandates of press freedom and freedom of expression, as well as people’s fundamental human rights guaranteed by national and international instruments. According to Suresh Acharya, president of the Federation of Nepalese […]
(CEHURDES/IFEX) – CEHURDES condemns the arrest of a journalist by the security forces. Furthermore, CEHURDES continues to urge the authorities to respect the universal mandates of press freedom and freedom of expression, as well as people’s fundamental human rights guaranteed by national and international instruments.
According to Suresh Acharya, president of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ), journalist Sudarsan Raj Pandey was arrested on 26 March 2002 and is being detained at the Suryabinayak Army Camp in Bhaktapur. Pandey is the editor and publisher of “Utthan” weekly and “Terai Today” daily, published in Birgunj. Quoting Pandey’s family members, on 31 March “Kantipur” daily reported that Pandey was taken into custody by security forces from Bhaktapur while he was travelling from Kathmandu to Tatopani (on the Nepal-Tibet border) to report on a story. Pandey’s whereabouts are still unknown.
In a separate incident, on 30 March, Ram Krishna Nirala, a former legal counsel to the state-owned Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation (RNAC), manhandled Puskar Thapa, a reporter with the “Space Time” daily, and accused him of publishing an incorrect news item in his newspaper. Thapa was harassed at a picnic party organised by the Kathmandu District Bar Association at Tribhuvan Park, in Thankot, in the capital. On 30 March, “Space Time” daily published a news report alleging that, while Nirala was legal advisor to RNAC, he concealed a file containing RNAC legal documents.
Following the declaration of a “state of emergency” in Nepal on 26 November 2001, more than 100 journalists have been arrested in different parts of the country. More than two dozen journalists remain in detention. Among them is journalist Kumar Rawat, whose whereabouts are still unknown (see IFEX alert of 26 March 2002). There have been no reports of official charges or cases filed against the journalists.
