Freedom Forum has been concerned over an incident of press freedom violation occurred in Morang, a district in the southern plain in the eastern part of Nepal on August 22, 2011.
An individual named Hari Shivakoti from Sijuwa of the district took under control Khagendra Basnet, a distributor of the Nigarani daily, published from the district and threatened him of burning down the newspaper.
According to Hari Koirala, Editor of the Nigarani daily, Shivakoti threatened of burning the newspaper citing the reason the paper published a cartoon in the gaijatre edition which scolded and insulted him and his relatives and well wishers.
Gaijatre comes from the word gaijatra, a festival celebrated in the country which deems the insult, mockery, satire about politicians and big ones almost legal in the festival.
The threat, therefore, over the news is against the press freedom. Similarly, taking control of distributor obviously hampered the distribution of the newspaper thereby suppressing people’s right to information.
Freedom Forum condemns the incident and urges the concerned people to respect the media freedom so as to help create a democratic and just society.
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np
01-4102030/ 4102022