(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) - ARTICLE 19 today released an analysis of Nepal's Right to Information Bill - 2063 (2006). Although the Bill includes some very positive features, there are a number of shortcomings, including the seriously overbroad regime of exceptions, Law/Asia Programmes Director Toby Mendel said: "Nepal now has an historic opportunity to put in place a truly democratic framework for freedom...
(FNJ/IFEX) - A group of people padlocked the newspaper office of the Morang-based newspaper "Mofussil Weekly" on 15 September 2006. It was padlocked in response to the newspaper having published a report that said a Maoist cadre, Bhim Tamang, had tried to sexually assault a minor girl. FNJ Morang reports that, according to "Mofussil Weekly" editor Narendra Rai, Nabaraj Tumba, from the Maoist...
Kathmandu, Sep 16 (IANS) Three years after a fierce opposition to alleged Indian investment in the media, Nepal's new government is now thinking of liberalising this sector, including allowing up to 49 percent foreign direct investment. After the fall in April of King Gyanendra's regime that had imposed harsh restrictions on the media, the new seven-party alliance (SPA) that came to power on the...
Kathmandu - A visiting international press freedom group advised Nepal's new government Thursday to make changes to preserve and strengthen press freedom in the country that emerged in April from direct rule by King Gyanendra. The group - headed by Christopher Warren, president of the International Federation of Journalists - gave a five-point recommendation to the ruling Seven-Party Alliance...
(FNJ/IFEX) - The Seven Party Alliance and the Maoists, in their written suggestion to the Interim Constitution Drafting Committee, stressed the need to guarantee freedom of the press and expression. The Nepali Congress, in its proposed draft Constitution, has suggested that, keeping in view the special role that the press played during the people's movement, the press should be established as the...
(FNJ/IFEX) - Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachanda, has expressed Maoists' commitment towards press freedom, multiparty democracy and human rights. Addressing an interaction organized by the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) in the capital on Thursday (29th June 2006), the Maoist supreme leader said that the development of the Nepalese media after 1990 has been positive. He...
KATHMANDU: The Nepalese media that was vibrant and proud even during 14 months of King Gyanendra's absolute rule is today hanging down its head in shame amid reports that journalists received money from the Royal government. The Nepalese government revealed that about 90 journalists affiliated with various news media received money during the period of royal direct rule to "write about the peace...
King Gyanendra and Maoist rebel leader Prachanda, the instigators of many killings, attacks and arrests of journalists, were removed today from the Reporters Without Borders list of Press Freedom Predators because the king has ceded power to parliament and government, and Prachanda signed a political accord with Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on 16 June undertaking to respect democracy and...
(CEHURDES/IFEX) - The Center for Human Rights and Democratic Studies (CEHURDES), a Kathmandu-based freedom of expression monitoring group, condemns the threat against journalist Binod Tripathi by Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) - Maoist rebels. Maoist cadres threatened Tripathi over a news report published in "Kantipur", a leading private-sector daily, on 11 June 2006, which said the rebels had set...
(CEHURDES/IFEX) - CEHURDES condemns the act of burning of copies of a leading newspaper by a religious group and the manhandling of a photojournalist by police personnel. On 24 May 2006, a group of protesters stopped a vehicle belonging to Kantipur Publications Ltd. at Parawanipur, some 15 kilometres from the southern town of Birgunj. They took out all 1,700 copies of the newspaper and burnt them...
