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 Attacks on the media in Nepal continue, increasing a sense of fear and insecurity among journalists working in the area. There are reports coming out of Kathmandu that more newspaper delivery vans have been intercepted by mobs and newspapers burnt. Vehicles carrying journalists have also been ambushed. Some see the attacks as being directly related to editorials critical of those organising strike action throughout the Kathmandu valley. From there, Deepak Adhikari reports.
Journalists and media support staff are increasingly feeling insecure in a country where lawlessness appears to be spreading.
On June 15, a van carrying journalists to Nepalgunj in midwestern Nepal was attacked.
Kiran Nepal, editor of fortnightly Himal along with reporters Ramehswar Bohara and Indra Shrestha were travelling in the van with Ramji Dahal, Secretary of Federation of Nepalese Journalists.
The same day, a van belonging to Kantipur daily, Nepal’s largest circulation newspaper was attacked and its windscreen damaged.
Journalists linked to the Kantipur daily were also attacked, apparently for a front page report that was seen as being against the Maoists.
Those carrying out the attacks have also demanded that shopkeepers and home owners remove billboards advertising Kantipur.
The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is behind calls for a Kathmandu Valley-wide strike in protest of the death of one of its members.
 In another incident the next day, copies of the Nagarik daily, a newly launched Nepali newspaper at Gatthaghar, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, were burnt apparently because of a story published in its Tuesday (16 June) edition.
Nagarik and its sister publication in English, Republica , reported that the Maoist, Rajendra Phuyal, whose death led them to call a strike on 17 June, has taken his own life.
Ever since the Maoist government stepped down a month ago, following a row with its coalition partners regarding the sacking of an army chief, Maoists have been staging strikes that have crippled the country.
Some media outlets in Nepal, perceived as criticising the Maoist actions, have been subjected to attacks.
In an editorial entitled Big Bullies The Kathmandu Post, Nepal’s leading English daily wrote: "Not even people with the most valid of excuses to be moving around in vehicles - medical personnel or journalists, for example - were spared. ‘Action’ was taken against even bicyclists and rickshaw pullers."
It was not only Kathmandu and Nepalgunj that saw attacks on the media. In Bhairahawa, in the southern plains of Nepal, Maoists burnt 1,200 copies of Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post in June 11.
In the early hours of Saturday 6 June protesters stopped a van carrying copies of The Kathmandu Post and Kantipur daily, set fire to it and destroyed 7,000 copies of the newspapers. On the same day, a motorcycle belonging to Avenues Channel was set on fire. Rajesh Baral, the cameraman of the channel was assaulted.
In the post-civil war chaos that is Nepal, the media has become the first casualty.
Note: Deepak Adhikari is a reporter with the Kantipur Daily. He is happy for this piece to be reproduced as long as he is credited and a link is provided to this article which was written exclusively for Media Helping Media. Click here for his blog.
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