(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned the interrogation of five newspaper editors for publishing blank spaces to protest censorship measures. The organisation also denounced the mistreatment of reporter Swaagat Nepal while he was being questioned by soldiers in Kathmandu. RSF deplored the attempts to intimidate courageous editors who have been fighting censorship and reiterated its call […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned the interrogation of five newspaper editors for publishing blank spaces to protest censorship measures. The organisation also denounced the mistreatment of reporter Swaagat Nepal while he was being questioned by soldiers in Kathmandu.
RSF deplored the attempts to intimidate courageous editors who have been fighting censorship and reiterated its call for the lifting of all censorship measures imposed by the king since 1 February 2005.
“This does not scare me,” one of the editors, Kabir Rana of the weekly “Deshantar”, told RSF. “I will continue to write in support of democracy and press freedom and I am ready to go to jail for the cause,” he said.
Rana and Rajendra Baidh, of the weekly “Bimarsh”, were interrogated for two hours on 23 February by Baman Prasad Neupane, chief of the Kathmandu district administration office. They were freed after signing a statement undertaking to report to the authorities whenever summoned. The next day, Neupane questioned Navaraj Timilsinha, of “Prakash”, Gopal Budhathoki, of “Sanghu”, and Shashidhar Bhandari, of “Hank”.
On 24 February, all the editors agreed not to run any more blank spaces in their newspapers. “We are going to fill the blank spaces with reports about social issues, but not politics,” said Budhathoki, who spent 22 days in detention in March 2002. “I wanted to show and tell my readers that I was prevented from expressing my views freely,” he explained.
In addition, the editors of two dailies, “Rajdhani” and “Himalaya Times”, were summoned for questioning by the Kathmandu district administration office on 16 February for publishing political news reports in violation of the 1 February royal decree. Neupane asked them in future to notify the office before publishing any articles on the political situation. The two newspapers did not mention the summons in any of their reports.
Some Nepalese newspapers, such as the daily “Kantipur”, have run editorials on such subjects as archery and classical dance in protest over the censorship. On 4 February, the weekly “Nepali Times” ran an editorial headlined, “The Green Forest is Nepal’s Health”, that defended democracy using ecology as a metaphor.
In a separate incident, Swaagat Nepal, a reporter and columnist for the daily “Nepal Samacharpatra”, was held for more than 14 hours by soldiers after being arrested on a Kathmandu street on 21 February. Plainclothes soldiers forced the journalist into a jeep with no licence plate. He was seated in a chair, interrogated throughout the night and deprived of food and water. The soldiers questioned him about the nature of his links with Maoist publications, such as “Janadesh”. He was released on the morning of 22 February.
