Nepal: 1,000 detained as journalists join demos
KATHMANDU – Around 1,000 people were taken into custody on April 17 as police in Nepal broke up new demonstrations against the royalist government and protesters torched two trucks, witnesses said. Police took away about half of some 1,000 people who took to the streets at the call of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists to protest alleged harassment of media covering two weeks of mass anti-monarchy demonstrations.
The Federation said that among those detained were the media group’s president, Taranath Dahal; Kunda Dixit, editor of the English-language weekly The Nepali Times, and Narayan Wagle, editor of leading daily Kantipur. Another 500 demonstrators were rounded up in a separate demonstration led by Sher Bahadur Deuba, the prime minister dismissed for “incompetence” in 2002 by King Gyanendra who appointed his own un-elected government. Elsewhere in Kathmandu, angry demonstrators torched two trucks that police planned to use to haul away protesters by a five-party opposition alliance.
Journalists called their march after saying that 70 working reporters were detained and several injured by police batons when covering protests on Friday. The Federation had joined opposition protests on Friday demanding King Gyanendra restore democracy, but the group said that those detained were covering and not participating in the rallies. “The government is trying to curb the public’s right to know,” Dahal said in a statement before he was detained. Police denied they were trying to obstruct the media.
Source: The News
Date:4/18/2004
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