The gang went looking for Sher Bahadur KC after he published a news report on the arrest of a man on the police's Most Wanted list.
(Freedom Forum/IFEX) – Freedom Forum is concerned over an incident that took place in Banke, a district in the southern belt of the midwestern region of Nepal, on 4 November 2011.
A gang of criminals went looking for Sher Bahadur KC, a journalist who works for the local Radio Pratibodh FM station and the “Mission Today” daily. The journalist was being sought in connection with a story he published in the daily regarding the arrest of a man on the district police’s Most Wanted list, Kulin Rana, of Kohalpur.
Speaking to Freedom Forum’s media monitoring desk, the journalist said a gang linked to Rana went looking for him at his home, but luckily he was not there at the time. He added that rumours have been circulating in his community that he could be attacked at any time because he reported on Rana’s arrest.
Incidents of this nature are impacting negatively on the right of journalists to freely write about crime and social misconduct, notes Freedom Forum. Moreover, they lead to self-censorship among journalists.
Freedom Forum strongly urges the authorities to provide protection to the journalist and take action against the members of the group responsible for intimidating him.
