PRESS FREEDOM
Unabashed Attack
Pro-Maoist elements are increasingly becoming more brazen in their targeting of private and independent media
By SANJAYA DHAKAL
There is a clear double standard in the manner the pro-Maoist elements are operating to target free media.
In the recent months, the Maoist-affiliated unions have championed the causes of 'workers' to ram through basic tenets of press freedom and public right to information. But at the same time, in the state-owned Gorkhapatra corporation – it is interesting to note that senior Maoist leader Krishna Mahara is the Minister for Information and Communication – the management has sacked 49 journos without so much as a passing concern for the 'working journalists' there.
After a break of a month, the Maoist-aligned trade union workers have started disrupting the printing and distribution of The Himalayan Times and Annapurna Post dailies and have also forced Radio HBC FM to go off the air.
In the two dailies, the union workers resorted to disruptions citing that the two newspapers had carried news against them on their front pages in Saturday's edition. "On (Friday, August 10) evening, Arjun Kumar Gautam, chairman of APCA Nepal unit of the union, entered the editorial floor of Annapurna Post and threatened not to distribute the newspapers if the news against them was published the next day. On the following, they seized all copies of newspapers from the Sama Printers, Bhainsepati, and dumped them inside the printing press. Despite police presence, they did not let anybody bring the copies out of Sama Printers. Both the dailies had carried the news about the Patan Appellate Court's summons to the Maoist affiliated trade union leaders on Saturday's editions," the statement by the newspapers say.
The Court, on August 9, had summoned Arjun Kumar Gautam, chairman of the union's APCA Nepal branch, Khadananda Pokharel, chairman of Sama Printers branch and Kuchindra Thapa, chairman of dispatchers' sub committee to the court to ask why a stay order should not be issued asking them not to disrupt the dailies' distribution. All of them had refused to accept the court summons.
On Monday (August 13), the union workers even prevented the staffers of both the dailies from entering the office premises in Anam Nagar. The Maoist workers organized a corner meeting at the premises of the APCA Nepal later in the evening and warned the journalists to be sensitive while writing news about them. They also threatened to close down the newspapers if their demands were not met. They had, on Sunday, threatened the journalists of physical action if they wrote news related to them.
On the other hand, Birendra Dahal, a manager of Radio HBC FM, has launched fast unto death from Sunday demanding full respect to press freedom. He launched the hunger strike after pro-Maoist 'republican radio workers' closed down the radio since last one week. Dahal started his fast-unto-death from Sunday within the premises of Media Village in Tilganga. Dahal has called for firm commitment by the Maoists and its affiliate groups expressing their faith in full press freedom.
Enraged by the continued attack on press freedom Nepal Media Society in a press release condemned the interference of the pro-Maoist unions in the working of newspapers and FM radio stations. It said that it was forced to conclude that in view of the ongoing counter-productive and disruptive activities of such unions against organizations, which are striving to inform people, work for human rights and freedom, that democracy really does not exist in the country. It has asked the government for providing protection to media houses, protect their right to dissemination of information and ensure that daily work in their offices or printing presses is not obstructed.
