Lately, Freedom Forum has recorded two incidents of press freedom violation.
Bikas Agrawal, a reporter with the local Bypass daily from Rautahat, a district in the southern plain of the country was threatened of physical action by a district level leader of Sadbhavana Party on October 9, 2012 over the publication of a news story about an obstruction and protest of a Minister.
Talking to Freedom Forum's Media Monitoring Desk, journalist Agrawal said Shekh Jadsed, a district leader of the Sadbhavana Party, threatened him, saying, "Why did you write news about Health Minister Rajendra Mahato? It is not good news. So, I'll attack you."
Journalist Agrawal said he had reported about waiving black flags to Minister Mahato by some youth organizations when Minister came to the district.
The incident shows- political leaders are always hostile to media freedom as they do not want to see anything negative about their parties and leaders. Despite writing facts, journalist Agrawal was terrorized.
This way, journalists are targeted time and again from different sectors and bound to work under pressure which is responsible for self-censorship.
Freedom Forum condemns both incidents and urges strongly the Sadbhavana Party to be aware of media freedom and journalist's rights and people's right to information. Similarly, the concerned security bodies in both cases need to seek the persons involved in threat and mete out action.
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np
01-4102030/ 4102022