An incident of press freedom violation has alarmed Freedom Forum. The incident occurred in Barahachhetra of Sunsari, a district in the southern plain of the eastern part of Nepal, on January 15, 2012.
A reporter with a local Byline Weekly in Dharan, Himal Rai was beaten up and robbed while he was returning home after making news about a religious fair.
Talking to Freedom Forum over telephone, reporter Rai said, "A person named Binod Limbu beat me and robbed a digital camera, a diary and Rs 10,000 when I was returning from the fair making news. Limbu was drunk and said: you are the man to write news."
Scribe Rai further shared his woes that he was looted before the police persons but they just remained mute spectators.
Such incidents are responsible for growing self-censorship among journalists, and the self-censorship is against free flow of information and harmful to the freedom of expression.
Freedom Forum condemns the attack and loot on journalist, and strongly urges local administration to arrest and mete out punishment to attacker Limbu and return the things he looted to journalist Rai.
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np
01-4102030/ 4102022