In The Line of Fire

(Above)FNJ Officials submitting a Memo to UN Officials in Nepal/Sagar Shrestha


In The Line of Fire/ Sagar Shrestha

With deaths of ten journalists blamed on both the security forces and the Maoists over past nine years, and over two hundred reportedly in government detention at the moment, a huge media crisis is in the making in Nepal.

By John Narayan Parajuli

Nepal’s escalating conflict among others has hit the press corps very hard. Ten of them have been already killed both by the State and the Maoists and more are facing daily threats more so after Feb.1 takeover. The Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) attributes the numbers killing equally to the government and Maoists.

On September 9, FNJ called on the United Nation’s Secretary General Kofi Annan to discuss the persecution Nepalese Journalists are facing in the UN general assembly meeting.

FNJ claims that over 200 journalists have arrested from through out Nepal following King Gyanendra’s decision to take direct control of the government on February 1. The monarch who took power with the help of the military immediately began clamping down media houses. Many publications have been either shut-down owing to severe censorship the authorities imposed, or have since been operating under heavy censorship.


As the conflict is protracting, journalists have become an eyesore both for authorities and Maoists in Nepal.

On March 31 this year suspected Maoists shot Khagendra Shrestha, the editor of regional daily Dharan Today. Shrestha 45 later died of bullets injuries in hospital. He was receiving threats reportedly from the Maoists for allegedly writing against them. He didn’t heed them and he was silenced.

He is not the only one. A total of ten journalists have been killed in last 9 years both by the State and the Maoists. Reporters were targeted in countryside, the epicenter of fighting between the government forces and the Maoists by both the warring parties. In 2004 Maoists brutally killed reporter Dakendra Raj Thapa of state-run Radio Nepal by slitting his throat. The number of journalists killed in 2004 was more than just one.
Last year two Journalists were killed—one blamed on the Maoists and the other on the government. But after the Feb.1 royal takeover, a disturbing pattern has emerged. Military and royal palace officials are openly found threatening journalists according to human rights groups.

In February the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report with troubling details. “At a meeting with newspaper editors, the King’s secretary reportedly stated that he would be unable to help if the military decided to “disappear” journalists or editors for a few hours,” HRW said in its report quoting unspecified sources.

“The King’s representatives are engaging in shocking threats to editors and journalists,” said Brad Adams, HRW’s Asia division director. Those threats conveyed in February were implemented discreetly. Media that authorities perceived as a threat were systematically threatened, attacked and were denied government advertisements
FNJ claims that several newspapers have been shut down and direct or indirect censorship has been clamped down on the FM stations to air the news. The government has also disrupted the main three dimensions of media outlet- access to information, advertisement and distribution, according to FNJ officials. Government advertisements were only channeled to those media outlets that toed the official version.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documents threats issued against independent media houses. In its dispatch dated August 26 CPJ states that it is alarmed by Minister for Information and Communication Tanka Dhakal’s confirmation that the government initiated legal action against Kantipur Publications, one of the biggest independent media outlets in Nepal, following the publication of an allegedly “objectionable” cartoon.

Conditions for journalists have become appalling. Security forces have attacked and detained journalists while covering the protest of political parties. Observers say that the government has created an atmosphere of journalistic panic. Journalists have been brutally beaten in the streets by the riot police, locked-up with political activists and overtly threatened. And the Maoists have done no less. They have threatened reporters in the rural areas with their life.

If the present trend continues, Nepal’s press crisis is likely to take a catastrophic proportion. International pressure in the past has helped to reverse the spiraling cycle of deaths and disappearance of humans. The hope is that the international community would reckon the situation in Nepal before it’s too late, not just for the press corps, who are always in the line of fire, but for the whole population—caught in the vicious cycle of the conflict.