Human rights violations continue in Nepalposted on: 2007/01/04

On 1 January 2007, about sixty participants in a protest in Nepal organized by the Citizen’s Movement for Peace and Democracy, against the delay in promulgating the interim constitution, were arrested. According to reports, police broke up the protest, using excessive force immediately after the activists had gathered outside the Prime Ministers residence.

Shyam Shrestha, human rights defender and journalist, Mahendra Bista Secretary General of the Federation of Nepalese Journalist’s and Dr. Devendra Raj Pandey, were amongst those arrested. The Federation of Nepalese Journalist’s strongly condemned the arrest of the human rights defenders and journalists, and stated: "The act is against the spirit of people's movement and the people's fundamental right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression."

Later that evening, the protesters were released. This is the first time since the restoration of democracy, of April 2006, that civil society representatives have been arrested. These arrests contravene the commitment to respect human rights as articulated in the peace accords signed by the Government and Maoists, in November 2006.

Nepalese denied the right to defend their rightsposted on: 2006/04/24

Front Line Press Release

24 April 2006, 19.00 (Kathmandu time)

At the end of a five-day mission to Nepal, Front Line Deputy Director, Andrew Anderson, expressed the organization’s deep concern about the brutal repression of those peacefully demonstrating for the restoration of human rights and democracy in Nepal as well as the continued detention of more than 200 human rights defenders. Over recent days, Front Line has met with Nepalese human rights defenders, including some of those detained, and monitored the protests in the Kathmandu area.

Front Line met with Krishna Pahadi, Shyam Shrestha and Dr Devendra Raj Panday at their places of detention during the last two days. It is outrageous that these human rights defenders continue to be arbitrarily detained without charge or trial for more than 90 days.

“If the authorities are serious about seeking a peaceful resolution of the crisis they should immediately release these three, and all those detained illegally for their defence of human rights,” said Andrew Anderson.

Nepal: Human Rights Defenders detained, censored, harassed and intimidatedposted on: 2005/05/16

On 1 February 2005, King Gyanendra declared a state of emergency throughout Nepal, thereby triggering a human rights crisis of catastrophic proportions. The situation shows no signs of improvement and is likely to deteriorate further over the coming weeks and months. Pressure from the international community has been largely ineffectual and the King seems impervious to calls from around the world for the restoration of rights and democracy in the country. Although the State of Emergency was lifted at the end of April 2005, illegal detentions, press censorship, restrictions on public gatherings and travel remain in place as the political crisis continues.

Although the King claimed that the state of emergency was necessary in order to resolve the struggle with the Maoist rebels that began in 1996, it was not clear how this would be achieved. During the first days of the state of emergency the King used his position as Commander of the Royal Nepalese Army to assert absolute control over civil society and took steps to prevent any expression of opposition to his course of action.