-Update-
Nepal Police has arrested nine RTI activists while registering their RTI applications at District Ayurvedic Health Centre Parsa today (November 2). Parsa lies in the Province 2 of Nepal.
As per information received at Freedom Forum, nine activists Manoj Rouniyar (Member, National Network for RTI), Udaya Kushwaha, Pravin Manipal, Pramila Giri, Dip Narayan Prasad Yadav, Salamat Hussain Mansoor, Keshar Das, Rupesh Singh and Birendra Yadav had reached the health centre to register their RTI application separately. In the meantime, police arrested them and released however, Kushwaha and Manipal were detained for four hours.
The incident has been reported to take place with alleged involvement of the office's Chief Ramesh Mishra, Information Officer Nagendra Prasad Patel and District Police Chief.
FF's representative Rajan Singh quoted Rouniyar as saying Mishra and Patel threw their RTI applications and called the police to arrest them.
Arrested activists had filed RTI seeking information on office staff, yearly income, details about information officer and review meeting's expenditure at the office.
Freedom Forum condemns the arrest as it is blatant violation of citizen's right to information. Every citizen has right to demand information of his/ her or public interest at the government offices using RTI. The offices are equally obliged to provide the information requested using RTI as per the RTI Act. Hence, FF demands for immediate release of the activists and urges the concerned authority to provide the information requested using RTI.
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np