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 Two journalists working in the eastern hills area of Nepal say they have fled the region after being seized, abused and threatened. One says the threats came after he filed a report critical of the local Maoists and refused to reveal his sources. Deepak Adhikari has spoken to the two men and filed this report.
The Nepal Freedom Forum is calling on the Nepali government to curb what it says is a rise in attacks on the media in the region.
The two journalists, Lawadev Dungana, a reporter with Kantipur , Nepal's largest daily newspaper, and Kumar Ojha, editor of Bartaman Samay, a weekly published from Phidim, headquarters of Panchthar District, say they fled the region claiming they were being threatened and abused by members of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) CPN-M.
Last week Dungana wrote a report for Kantipur in which he claimed that the Maoists had siphoned off 200,000 rupees ($2,630 US) from a rural electrification tender.
Speaking on the telephone from Ilam, another hill town four hour drive from Phidim, Dungana said the Maoists were unhappy with what he had written.
"The president of the YCL (Young Communist League), a Maoist organisation, called me up and threatened me," he said. Dhungana says he was then asked to reveal his sources and told to donate 200,000 rupees to the party or face the consequences.
Over the next few hours he says he received a number of threatening calls before being cornered in the Phidim bazaar, along with his journalist friend Kumar Ojha, by two men who Dungana says were Maoists.
Dungana says both he and Ojha were taken to the CPN-M party office where he claims they were detained for one and a half hours, during which time he says they were kicked and abused.
He says they were freed after a group of journalists arrived at the scene.
"We tried to lodge a complaint at the district police office but the officials there would not register it," said Dungana.
"We fled the region because neither of us felt secure," he said from his Ilam hotel.
The Kathmandu Post carried the story about the incident on its front page on Sunday and wrote about what the paper claimed was police indifference to the plight of the two journalists.
The Nepal Freedom Forum, a freedom of expression organisation says the incident is yet another case of attempt to gag the press.
"Freedom Forum deplores the tendency of harassing journalist at work and demands the government takes action to curb the rise in such anti-press incidents in Nepal and also bring those guilty of carrying out the attacks to justice."
On the organisation’s website, Nepal Press Freedom, the organisation said the incident is another serious blow for press freedom.
Note: Deepak Adhikari is a reporter with the Kantipur Daily. He compiled this report for Media Helping Media. Click here for his blog. |
