After two weeks of attack by its cadres on Nepal Republic Media, the Shivasena Nepal on January 2, 2013 has apologized for the attack.
A team of top leaders including Founder Chairman of the Shivasena Nepal, Arun Subedi, reached the Republic Media Office and said sorry to Editor-In-Chief of the Nagarik daily, a sister publication of the Republica daily, Kishor Nepal and other staffs.
"Nagarik daily is a patriotic newspaper," said Founder Chairman Arun Subedi, adding, "We don´t have any dissatisfaction with it, said the Republica daily on January 3.
Shivasena leadership pledged that they would not repeat such a mistake in future in the presence of Kathmandu Chief District Officer (CDO) Chudamani Sharma who had earlier ordered to remand Shivasena's cadres into custody.
Meanwhile, stating that no one can curb the universal values of freedom of speech and of expression, Editor-In-Chief, Nepal, who is also the editor-in-chief of Shukrabar weekly, said that one should hold discussions in case of disagreements. "If a matter can´t be resolved that way, there are legal ways as well," he maintained.
Dozens of cadres of the Shivasena Nepal had stormed the Office of Republic Media at Sundhara of the capital and attacked on Nepal Republic Media on December 20 objecting to the news/photos published in the Shukrabar weekly. They assaulted Editor-In-Chief Kishor Nepal and other journalists.
Following the attack, 13 Shiva Sena cadres were held and remanded to judicial custody which later was added by 7 more days.
The remand was extended by one more week as the police needed more time for proper investigation.
Freedom Forum takes the apology positively as it in a way showed respect to media freedom though late. However, the FF urges the administration to continue investigation into the incident.
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np
01-4102030/ 4102022