Chief District Officer (CDO) of Sunsari, an eastern district of Nepal, Ram Prasad Thapaliya committed his guilty of misbehaving with journalists. CDO Thapaliya had misbehaved with journalist duo Abadesh Kumar Jha, a reporter for Kantipur daily and Rajan Niraula of Blast daily during district level coordination meeting that was held on 28 July, 2010.
CDO Thapaliya told reporters that he would not repeat such incident in the days to come. "I am saddened with my behavior which hurt journalists", said CDO Thapaliya, "everyone in the society should respect press freedom and government officials are more responsible to uphold it." He also pledged to take immediate action against USAID staffer Umesh Gupta, who allegedly threatened journalist Jaykrishna Yadav, a Sunsari-based reporter for Gorkhaparta daily. Gupta had threatened journalist Yadav on August 1. Freedom Forum welcomes the commitment of CDO Thapaliya to uphold press freedom in the days to come. The Forum believes such incidents do not recur. Regarding the threat to journalist Yadav, the Forum asks him to take immidiate action against guilty.
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np
01-4102030/ 4102022