The incidents against press freedom are occurring on a daily basis in Nepal these days.
Freedom Forum has learnt that the cadres of Youth Force- a youth wing of ruling party, the CPN-UML –burnt down the copies of Nagarik and Republica national dailies in Damak, the eastern most city in the southern plain of the country on June 11, 2011. They snatched 165 copies of Nagarik daily and 10 copies of Republica from Shrestha Book Centre and Krishna Newspaper Stall in Damak at around 6:00 am and torched the newspapers in the main road. Earlier, a cadre of the Youth Force, who reached to the newspaper stalls early in the morning on the guise of customer, returned having looted all the newspapers of the dailies from both the shops. Youth Force cadres burnt copies of the national dailies in Jhapa at a time when protests were pouring out from different sections of society in response to the assault by Youth Force cadres on Nagarik’s correspondent in Biratnagar, Khilanath Dhakal.
The Freedom Forum condemns the incident of burning newspaper copies as it has gagged the press freedom. It strongly urges the government, and the concerned administration to take action against those involved in anti-press incident. The CPN-UML, the party leading the government at present must be serous towards freedom of press and honour people's right to information. Moreover, the organization strongly demands the ruling party CPN-UML that it gives up political protection to the perpetrators in media.
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np
01-4102030/ 4102022