In a 16 March 2000 letter to Nepalese Justice Minister Tarani Dattachaut, RSF protested the one-week jail sentence against Jagdish Bhattarai, editor of the local weekly “Nava Chetana” and correspondent for “Kantipur Daily” in Palpa. RSF asked the minister to personally intervene to secure the journalist’s immediate release. The organisation reminded him that, in a […]
In a 16 March 2000 letter to Nepalese Justice Minister Tarani Dattachaut, RSF protested the one-week jail sentence against Jagdish Bhattarai, editor of the local weekly “Nava Chetana” and correspondent for “Kantipur Daily” in Palpa. RSF asked the minister to personally intervene to secure the journalist’s immediate release. The organisation reminded him that, in a document dated 14 July 1992, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights emphasised that “detention as punishment for the expression of an opinion is one of the most reprehensible means to enjoin silence”.
According to the information collected by RSF, on 12 March, Bhattarai was sentenced to seven days in jail and fined 500 rupees (approx. US$7.2, 8 euros) for “contempt of court”. He was accused of writing an editorial published on 12 December 1998 under the headline “When defenders of the law become corrupt”, which denounced corruption and favours in the legal system, particularly in the Palpa district. In the editorial, the journalist threatened to publish the names of corrupt judges and civil servants. Passing sentence, Magistrate Raghu Nath Aryal accused the journalist of “sullying the image of judges and the court” and asked him to publish a correction and to publicly apologise. Bhattarai refused, explaining that he preferred prison and a fine to presenting his apologies to “corrupt judges.” He was taken to Palpa jail, accompanied by fellow journalists who demonstrated “their support by throwing flowers at him”, according to the local press.
