(CEHURDES/IFEX) – On 8 July 2005, the regional administrator for Nepal’s central region, Rabindra Chakrabarty, summoned Bhadranath Adhikary, editor and publisher of the twice monthly newspaper “Grameen Samachar” (“Rural News”), published in the southern city of Birgunj, and detained him for over 24 hours. According to “Kantipur”, “Grameen Samachar” reported in its 29 June issue […]
(CEHURDES/IFEX) – On 8 July 2005, the regional administrator for Nepal’s central region, Rabindra Chakrabarty, summoned Bhadranath Adhikary, editor and publisher of the twice monthly newspaper “Grameen Samachar” (“Rural News”), published in the southern city of Birgunj, and detained him for over 24 hours.
According to “Kantipur”, “Grameen Samachar” reported in its 29 June issue that Chakrabarty had used his influence to stop a probe into the suspicious deaths of three Indian workers at Star Cement Industry, a local business, after allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 200,000 (approx. US$3,000). A week after the publication of the report, Adhikary was arrested by local police and taken to the nearby town of Hetauda, where the regional administration office is located.
Chakrabarty verbally abused Adhikary in his office, saying his newspaper had “assassinated his character.” Adhikary stood by his story, however. He was not allowed to speak to his family members over the phone.
Adhikary was released the next day, after agreeing to sign a statement saying he would ask his paper’s executive editor to report to the regional administration office.
CEHURDES condemns the behaviour of Regional Administrator Chakrabarty and his harassment of a journalist who was simply carrying out his journalistic duties. Instead of clarifying his position regarding the news item, Chakrabarty abused his authority.
CEHURDES demands that the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), a constitutional body, investigate the incident and take action against Chakrabarty for abusing his office.
In a separate development, Maoist insurgents released journalist Som Sharma on 9 July. A reporter with “Aankha” newspaper, published in the eastern district of Ilam, Sharma was abducted by the Maoists in May and spent 56 days in captivity. He was released after a team led by a Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) representative held several rounds of talks with the insurgents. A CEHURDES official had earlier conducted similar negotiations with the Maoists in their stronghold.
CEHURDES welcomes the safe release of Sharma and reminds the insurgents of their duty under international humanitarian law not to harm civilians, including media personnel, under any circumstances.
At a time when a high-level international press freedom monitoring mission is visiting Nepal (see previous IFEX alert of 11 July 2005), CEHURDES calls on the Maoist leadership to make their position clear towards independent media in the country and to clearly instruct their cadres not to target journalists and free expression activists under any pretext.
