(CEHURDES/IFEX) – The following is a CEHURDES statement: CEHURDES condemns looting of equipment from leading FM radio station Kathmandu, Oct. 21 – Nepalese police forcibly took away equipment used for uplinking after entering the office premises of Kantipur F.M., a leading private sector FM radio station, in Lalitpur late Friday. According to the information provided […]
(CEHURDES/IFEX) – The following is a CEHURDES statement:
CEHURDES condemns looting of equipment from leading FM radio station
Kathmandu, Oct. 21 – Nepalese police forcibly took away equipment used for uplinking after entering the office premises of Kantipur F.M., a leading private sector FM radio station, in Lalitpur late Friday.
According to the information provided by Kantipur F.M., police returned to Kantipur F.M.’s premises a second time late Friday, nearly three hours after they had left, and forcibly took away key equipment used to uplink the FM station’s transmission to Bhedetar station in the eastern region of Nepal.
Four police vans arrived at the station and forcibly took away an encoder, a satellite modem and a digital audio recorder. The police left the station at around 11:15 p.m. local time.
Earlier, police had surrounded the F.M. station Friday evening after staff and management refused to close their uplinking facility, as demanded by a team of officials sent by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC).
Kantipur F.M. management said they had been using the uplinking facility in accordance with all the regulations enforced by the government. They demanded written orders from the MoIC team if it wanted the F.M. station to shut down its uplinking facility.
The MoIC team said they had orders to shut down the uplinking facility as it was prohibited under the newly introduced media law. When they informed their superiors at the MoIC about the staff’s stand, the Ministry sent in police instead of written orders.
After a nearly five-hour standoff, the MoIC team left the Kantipur F.M. premises at around 8 p.m. saying they were satisfied with the information provided by the station and that they would submit their technical report to the Ministry on Sunday when the office reopens.
The Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Studies (CEHURDES) condemns the midnight raid of Kantipur F.M. and the seizure of equipment from its premises. This act is a blatant violation of the country’s laws and yet another example that the royal government is ready to go to any extent to muzzle the independent media.
We demand an apology from the government for its uncivilized act and demand that it return all the equipment to Kantipur F.M. The government’s action also makes a mockery of the very notion of rule of law, as the Supreme Court is currently hearing a petition on whether F.M. radio stations should be allowed to air news and news-based programmes.
It is obvious that the government wants to intimidate independent media in Nepal so that there is no opposition to its ongoing march to curtail the civil liberties of the people.
We would like to remind the Nepalese authorities that the Nepali press is not alone in its fight to protect the freedom of the Nepali press, and call upon the international community to put pressure on the royal regime to return to a democratic set up and honor its obligations under the country’s constitution and international human rights standards.
