Freedom Forum's attention has been drawn seriously towards an incident occurred in Biratagar, an eastern city in the southern plain of Nepal on June 5, 2011.
Youth Force, a sister organization of the ruling Communist Party of Nepal Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) attacked journalist Khilanath Dhakal, reporter of the Nagarik, a national daily newspaper at night, accusing Dhakal of writing news against the Youth Force. Reporter Dhakal was attacked by the cadres of the Youth Force including driver of the district chairman of the Youth Force Parshu Ram Basnet. The brutal attack left reporter Dhakal seriously injured. His nose has been broken, and he got injuries on head and various parts of the body. The attack was coordinated as the Youth Force In-Charge at Biratnagar, Rohit Koirala called scribe Dhakal near district education office, took him a bit far in the dark in the pretext of holding talks, encircled him with cadres and beat severely. Escaped with difficulty, Mr Dhakal was found by a police patrol and taken to the hospital."If the police had not met me on time, I would be finished off there," said scribe Dhakal to his newspaper the Nagarik, published from the Capital and other cities as well. Scribe Dhakal had reported news about the Youth Force's attack on a police team on the premises of Morang District Court on June 1. It is the case how the political parties and their sister organizations are terrorizing journalists like criminals thereby suppressing media and the journalists' right and people's right to information.
Freedom Forum strongly urges the Prime Minister's party CPN-UML, and its sister organization YCL not to repeat such inhuman acts which are against free press, human rights and democratic culture. The State authority is urged to immediately bring to book the culprits involved in the attack. Moreover, Freedom Forum wishes for the speedy recuperation of the journalist Dhakal.
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np
01-4102030/ 4102022