Freedom Forum is alarmed by an incident where a chair of Rural Municipality Shrawan Kumar GC manhandled journalist Anish Tiwari for writing news against him. Journalist Tiwari is a Sindhupalchowk district reporter to Kantipur daily. The incident occurred on 1st March 2019 at Sindhupalchowk district.
Sindhupalchowk district lies in Province 3 of Nepal.
As per the information received by FF, Sunkoshi Rural Municipality Chair GC invited journalist Tiwari in his vehicle while both were traveling to Kathmandu. During the 1.5 hour trip, he threatened journalist to stop writing news against the municipality activities and illegal sand crusher business in the area.
Talking with FF's monitoring desk journalist, Tiwari shared, "Chairman GC called me inside the car while I was waiting for the public bus to Kathmandu. As I know him well I agreed to go together and sat inside. After that, he verbally abused me saying he had managed other journalists in the district and I should be aware of the consequences if I keep writing news against him. I was later dropped 15 km away at Chehere of Simle in the midway."
A story by Anish Tiwari was published in the Kantipur daily where he had written about the malpractice in Sunkoshi Rural Municipality.
FF condemns the incident as it is the sheer violation of press freedom. Manhandling journalist for writing news by a political cadre or political post bearer is burning issue these days. FF urges the concerned authority to respect press freedom guaranteed by the constitution of the country. It is the high time political post bearer should realize their role for the protection and promotion of free speech and media rights.
For More Information
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np
01-4102030/ 4102022