Unified CPN (Maoist)-aligned youth wing Young Communist League (YCL) cadres misbehaved with journalist duo Labadev Dhungana, a reporter for Kantipur Daily and Kumar Ojha, an editor of 'Bartaman Samay' weekly in Panchthar, in the eastern part of Nepal on June 27.
Following the publishing of a news of embezzling the fund Rs. 200,000 in a government project by Maoist in the Kantipur, YCL central member Indra Aangbo and District chairperson Balkrishna Kafle along with other cadre threatened journalist Dhungana and Ojha. Later, the Maoist cadre took them to the party office.
A group of YCL cadre forcefully made them out while they were covering the mews on a local youth club. According to journalist duo, Maoist local leaders and cadres threatened and mentally harassed for around one and half hour in their office.
Freedom Forum strongly denounces the incident and dubs it as 'deliberate anti-press action' by Maoist. As Nepali constitution and law ensure the right to go for legal action against published materials if it is not based in fact, Maoist cadre took the illegal and violent way to threaten journalist. The Forum urges the concerned political party, UCPN (Maoist), to control such anti-press activities. Forum also asks the government to take necessary action against those guilty of the incident.
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np
01-4102030/ 4102022