(CEHURDES/IFEX) – CEHURDES, a Kathmandu-based press freedom monitoring group, condemns the manhandling of journalists Moti Poudel and Kamal Pant in the mid-western district of Surkhet on 2 January 2006, while they were on duty. A group of security personnel manhandled Poudel and Pant, among others, as they were covering the re-arrest of four persons at […]
(CEHURDES/IFEX) – CEHURDES, a Kathmandu-based press freedom monitoring group, condemns the manhandling of journalists Moti Poudel and Kamal Pant in the mid-western district of Surkhet on 2 January 2006, while they were on duty.
A group of security personnel manhandled Poudel and Pant, among others, as they were covering the re-arrest of four persons at the premises of the Appellate Court at the Surkhet district administrative centre.
According to reports, in response to habeas corpus petitions, on 2 January the Appellate Court of Surkhet ordered the release of Bhim Bahadur B. K., Manrup Khatri, Lila Bahadur Bogati, and Gauri Kumari B. K., who were being detained on charges of being Maoist activists. The judges said they did not find enough evidence to continue to detain the above-named four persons.
As soon as the four were released, security personnel in plain clothes re-arrested all of them at the court premises. Security personnel manhandled Kamal Pant, a cameraman with the private sector Kantipur Publications, as he was taking footage of the re-arrest of the four. They also took him into custody.
When Moti Poudel, a reporter with the private sector “Kantipur” daily and president of the Surkhet district branch of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists, protested the arrest of his colleague, security personnel also manhandled him and took him into custody.
They were first taken to the Regional Police Directorate in Surkhet and kept there for nearly two hours and threatened. They were then transferred to the Surkhet District Police Office (DPO). At the DPO, police inspector Raj Kumar Silwal again threatened them and deleted video footage captured by journalist Pant, saying that he was ordered to do so. He did not reveal from whom he had received such orders.
The two journalists were released at around 8:00 p.m. (local time) after spending nearly four hours in police custody.
CEHURDES condemns the manhandling and brief detention of the two journalists and demands action against the security personnel concerned. CEHURDES demands that the authorities issue an apology to the journalists concerned and give assurances that such incidents will not recur.
There have been a number of incidents of the re-arrest of people by the authorities even after court orders to release them. The authorities usually mistreat journalists who are covering the incident and human rights activists who try to prevent the re-arrests.
CEHURDES renews its appeal to the Nepalese authorities to respect the court verdicts like any civilised government around the world would do and not to target, manhandle or detain media personnel simply because they will be exposing the authorities’ misconduct.
