Attention !International HR observers

With numerous number of Human Rights Organisations and their day-in-day-out outpouring of the press statement for the preservation and the strict observation of the Human Rights status in Nepal, one finds it difficult to understand as to why notwithstanding such strenuous efforts of such chivalrous institutions the situation in this case remains heartbroken. Since the advent of this new order, albeit a democratic one, speeches and lectures from the concerned Human Rights activists which some times gets added strength from the rulers of the day as well, the conditions of the distressed languishing in various prison houses or say jails remain as miserable as any thing. The system guarantees the minimum dignity and the basic needs of a particular citizen even if he or she is penalised by the state for any offences. The state promises that even at the prison the person will be taken proper care of. But why the state machinery despite the proclaimed guarantees behaves with the penalised person in a manner that goes contra to the established norms and the behaviours of a civilised society of which we now claim to be a prestigious democratic member? Perhaps it is time that the men manning the system and the men ruling the government of the day must find answers to the questions posed above. This should apply to all those responsible and civilised citizens of this Kingdom who dream of a Nepal that matches the top ranking nations of the world in so far as caring of Human Rights are concerned of their citizens. They can not escape the responsibilities and have to devise an instrument that ensures the safe, healthy and honoured life even being at the prisons for one pretext or the other. A crime once committed must not bar him or her from joining the mainstream society after their honoured release from the jails. He or she must be given a right treatment what has been guaranteed by the constitution, free and fair judicial actions and that too without delay. The international community too must come forward in assisting the Nepalese HR activists so that they can put pressures on the state machinery for the preservation of the HR of the common men of this society.

Our attention has been drawn towards a piece of stirring news item that appeared in a local newspaper that hundreds and thousands of jailed persons facing penal actions for one crime or the other were forced to live inside the prison in a bizarre inhumane conditions. The places where they-read the apprehended wrongdoers- were forced to live a life that is, we are told, is very much close to the hell. A small room is housing dozens of the inmates that understandably should definitely be suffocating. This should perhaps explain the rest of the living environment in which they were forced to live with no signs of improvements so far despite the hullabaloo created by the HR activists. The sorry tales of the jail inmates are such that a sentimental person can't stand their pathetic conditions in which they are presently living. The plight of the women folks inside the Tripureshwar jail-the Bhadragol- is so horrible that one finds it very difficult to portray the inside conditions. The untold plight of the weaker sex inside the jail apart, one old lady , by way of an example, reportedly is in the jail since well over two and a half decades. By this time the lady has loosed her hearing capacity and understandably lost her eyesight as well. The unfortunate part of the story is that what were her charges that landed her into the jail premises, what is her name, from where she hails, who are her immediate guardians and when she should have been released, no body knows including even the jail authorities. There is no mention even in the jail register of the above said facts about this unfortunate lady who has become pretty old. As yet no one has claimed the lady being a part of his or her family. To add insult to injury, no one from the HR groups have yet collected the courage to raise a voice of concern about this lady in question. Is not it a matter of shame for our HR organisations. Perhaps it is hundred percent.

While such horrible tales tell the sorry state of the Nepalese Home administration, it also by and large exposes the hollowness of those organisations who have been amassing wealth in the name of the restoration and the preservation of the HR situation in this beleaguered country. Pamphlets and propaganda through various lectures made in Kathmandu and elsewhere in this regard so far has not remained positive. Unfortunately, the political partisanization even in the HR activities in Nepal too has added complexity in this regard. HR violations must not be seen through political eyes. Institutionalisation of the HR values and norms can't be political after all whom so ever is denied his or her basic human rights are primarily a Nepali citizen. Let us all not see the HR issues through coloured political eyes. Any continuance of this sort of thinking will only embolden the state to act in a manner that go explicitly the spirits of the established behaviour and norms of a civilised state.

Perhaps the international observers too should take up the matter with the Nepal government and help facilitate the HR situation to spring up to a level where all the Nepalese enjoy the minimum basics as enshrined in the constitution now in force.

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