(CEHURDES/IFEX) – CEHURDES denounces ongoing interference by security forces that prevents journalists from being able to move freely and provide impartial news reports. Furthermore, the organisation also condemns the recent Maoist rebel attacks against the state-owned Gorakhapatra Corporation. According to news reports, on 24 March 2002, security personnel arrested Kumar Rawat, publisher and editor of […]
(CEHURDES/IFEX) – CEHURDES denounces ongoing interference by security forces that prevents journalists from being able to move freely and provide impartial news reports. Furthermore, the organisation also condemns the recent Maoist rebel attacks against the state-owned Gorakhapatra Corporation.
According to news reports, on 24 March 2002, security personnel arrested Kumar Rawat, publisher and editor of the pro-Maoist monthly magazine “Mul Prabaha” and the weekly newspaper “Mahima”, at his residence in Kalanki, Kathmandu. According to Rawat’s daughter, security personnel stated they would release her father the next morning after interrogating him.
According to CEHURDES’ sources, security forces released Chet Bahadur Sinjali, a local member of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ), after detaining him for nearly twelve hours. Sinjali was arrested on 21 March in the western town of Butwal.
In a separate development, police released Bijaya Raj Acharya, who runs a publishing house that publishes children’s books, after detaining him for nearly seventy days. Acharya said he was released on 19 March, conditional upon him reporting to police once a week. He was arrested by the security forces at his office on 9 January, detained for three days at an army barrack and later placed in police custody and transferred to the District Police Office in Hanumandhoka, Kathmandu. Acharya was reportedly tortured during the detention. The security forces accused him of allegedly publishing pro-Maoist literature, a charge which he denies.
In another incident, on 25 March, Maoist rebels planted a bomb at the office of the state-owned Gorakhapatra Corporation and caused minor damages. This is the second time that the rebels have targetted the offices that publish two government daily newspapers, “Gorakhapatra” and “The Rising Nepal”.
Following the declaration of a “state of emergency” in Nepal on 26 November 2001, more than 100 journalists were arrested in different parts of the country. More than two dozen journalists remain in detention. Among them are journalist Gopal Budhathoki (see IFEX alerts of 7 and 6 March 2002) and Shyam Shrestha (see IFEX alerts of 20 and 19 March 2002), whose whereabouts are still unknown. There have been no reports of official charges or cases filed against them.
