NEPAL: Global Condemnation Secures Release of High Profile Journalist

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Akhilesh Upadhyay

KATHMANDU, Mar 8 2005 (IPS) - The arrest and quick release late Monday of prominent Nepali journalist Kanak Mani Dixit underscores the current perils of Nepal’s free press and highlights the dilemma of the present palace-appointed government.

King Gyanendra assumed absolute powers on Feb. 1, after he sacked the government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, to fight a nine-year-old Maoist insurgency that has claimed over 11,000 lives.

Moments after his televised address to the nation, the king suspended fundamental civil liberties, including press freedom – prompting strong condemnation from the international community. Days later, Gyanendra swore in his own handpicked cabinet after placing all political party leaders under house arrest.

Dixit, editor and publisher of the Nepali-language ‘Himal Khabarpatrika’ magazine, was arrested on Monday – two days after his arrival from New Delhi where he had voiced his reservations at a conference against the royal putsch and imposition of a state of emergency in the Himalayan nation.

He has been a high-profile rebel and a strong vocal critic of King Gyanendra after the Feb. 1 royal coup. While most other editors and human rights activists have been happy seeking anonymity, Dixit has been out in the open expressing his opposition to the regime in the international media, including ‘CNN’ and ‘The Economist’.

His arrest follows fresh censorship measures that forbid journalists from reporting on the Maoist conflict without official vetting. The authorities can convict journalists or media outlets whose reporting affects the morale of the security forces, an issue of enormous public concern as the toll of the Maoist ”people’s war” keeps rising by the day.

According to new regulations issued last week, the sole source for any publication or broadcasting house for Maoist related news would be the security bodies. Reports or articles will have to give their sources.

If a publication or broadcasting house carries any interview, article, news, information, opinion or personal views that ”directly or indirectly instigate or support terrorist and destructive activities and terrorism”, they would be punished. However, the directive did not spell out what the punishment would be.

According to the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), reporters have been held and interrogated or beaten for their reporting. In once instance, a Nepal TV reporter was beaten for photographing bodies of soldiers killed in a Maoist attack.

”It (the arrest) gives a window into uncivilized behavior of our rulers,” Dixit told IPS on Tuesday morning, after his release from overnight detention.

He spent a night at a Jawalakhel police station, not too far from his home in the Kathmandu suburb of Patan Dhoka, where some senior political party leaders have been locked up since Feb. 1.

”They (the leaders) have been less fortunate (than me),” said Dixit.

To a government facing international isolation, the arrest on Monday came under immediate national and global scrutiny.

Within hours, an online site reported that Dixit had been picked up from his home by plainclothes security forces to ”see a DSP” (deputy superintendent of police).

As word of his arrest spread, news reports said that his family members had delivered him sleeping bags and clothes late in the evening at a police station.

Dixit himself said that he was prepared for the long haul.

Overnight Monday, emails and telephone messages voicing concerns for his safety travelled round the world.

In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) soon issued a solidarity statement.

”The jailing of Kanak Dixit is another severe blow to the ideals of democracy and press freedom that once seemed so promising in Nepal,” said CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper.

”Despite international censure of the king’s actions, journalists remain in jail and conditions for the press are dire. We call for the immediate release of Dixit and all other journalists in detention,” she added.

Upon his release, Dixit, once again, used the bully pulpit to lecture the royal government, while he candidly admitted that not all journalists and human rights activists had been lucky enough to be freed after a few hours in detention.

”Some of us are privileged in Kathmandu,” said Dixit. ”But make no mistake, the country’s civil liberties and press freedom have taken a knock. They have been pushed back several decades. The situation of journalists and human rights activists, especially outside Kathmandu, is anything but normal.”

At least five journalists remain in prison and scores of others operate under draconian censorship rules. Forty FM radio stations have already fired most of their journalists because the government no longer allows private stations to air news programs. Major newspapers, including the leading daily, ‘Kantipur’, face prospects of huge layoffs as advertisement revenues continue to plunge amid deepening political instability and a looming security catastrophe.

”Despite the use of soldiers to induce a climate of fear among journalists, many have defied the restrictions,” said the IFJ’s president Christopher Warren.

”They are attempting to keep their communities informed of these momentous events, even to the extent of publishing an underground newspaper,” added Warren in a statement. The IFJ represents over 500,000 journalists worldwide.

In recent weeks, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented at least three arrests by the government.

Arjun Prasad Shah, editor of ‘Batabaran’ weekly, and Monohar Pokhrel, editor of ‘Jana Aakrosh’ weekly, are both members of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists – an umbrella body representing Nepali journalists.

Security forces have also detained D.R. Panta, local correspondent of the ‘Kantipur’ daily in the district of Dadeldhura. All are based outside Kathmandu.

”I am well aware that journalists and human rights activists outside Kathmandu face much greater risk than those of us in the capital,” said Dixit. ”That needs to be publicised.”