Volume 3, No. 9, September 2002

On the evening of July 10,2002, Special Branch police swooped down on a sitting of intellectuals at Delhi’s Mandi House, who had gathered to plan a meeting on the question of democracy in Nepal. The meeting was to be organised by the India-Nepal People’s Solidarity Forum. The police whisked away 13 people present for the discussion. Present at the meeting, was also veteran journalist and Rajya Sabha member, Kuldeep Nayar. After interrogation for three hours the nine Indians were released while the four Nepalese were detained. Among those picked up were journalists, Pankaj Singh, Anand Swaroop Verma and the human rights activist Gautam Naulakha.

Early next morning the four Nepalese were secretively flown to Nepal and handed over to the Nepalese military authorities. They have since been kept in military custody, though the Delhi High Court stayed their deportation, on the basis of a writ petition filed by the PUDR (People’s Union Of Democratic Rights). Till now their whereabouts are not known. The Nepal authorities have not mentioned a word about these four. It is feared that they may have joined the list of large number of ‘disappeared’ journalists and press workers of which there is no trace in Nepal.

The four deported included the three journalists Partha Chatri, Maheswar Dahal and Aditi Shah, and student Moti Prasad. Most had been in India for over seven years. They have been accused of being members of the Akhil Bharatiya Nepal Ekta Samaj, which has been banned under POTA.The hastiness, with which the Indian authorities deported them, is indication of a deepening conspiratorial nexus between the Indian and Nepalese military authorities, to assassinate even liberal Nepalese who oppose the tyranny of the Gynendra/Deuba dictatorial rule.

This was the immediate follow up to the week-long India visit of King Gyanendra in end-June, where the Indian side "offered all possible help to Kathmandu in combating the challenge posed by Maoist insurgents". During this visit the King met the whole array of top Indian leadership and military chiefs, besides visiting a host of temples, to emphasise the Hindu Rashtra aspect of the Nepalese State. The main aspect of the visit was to seek further military involvement for joint action against the Maoists of Nepal. The latest deportation was part of this understanding. At his meeting with Fernandez, the latter promised him added military equipment like helicopters, utility vehicles, and mine-proof combat vehicles. Fernandez also promised specialised anti-insurgency training of the RNA officers at the Army’s training institutes, including the notorious Counter-insurgency Jungle Warfare School at Mizoram. They also discussed the possibility of sending additional Indian military personnel to Nepal for training troops there. Through these meetings India also sought to tighten its grip further on the economy of Nepal, by seeking additional investments in the two main spheres of its economy — tourism and hydel power. It also sought further exploitation of the Nepalese market by enhancing trade between the two countries, which has increased 6-fold in the past five years from $166 million in 1996/97 to $1,000 million in 2000/01. India is using its growing military involvement in Nepal, to further consolidate its economic hold over the country.

And just two days before the King’s India visit the entire imperialist gang met at London at the so-called British initiative, to chalk out a coordinated economic-military plan to crush the Maoists of Nepal and prop up the tottering Deuba/Gyanendra clique. This two-day conference was attended by both India and China, who lent full support to the imperialist conspiracy against the people of Nepal. In fact India played a key role, acting as the chief hatchet man of the US/British combine. This gathering, was in continuation of a stream of top imperialist hawks, defence officials and Indian vultures that have been visiting Nepal, to assist in crushing the Maoist uprising.

Ofcourse, for all their talk of human rights all of them turned a blind eye to the extra-judicial killing of thousands and the ‘disappearances of hundreds, including a large number of journalists, poets, writers and other intellectuals; and the killing in police custody of veteran journalist and poet Krishna Sen.

Robert Ménard, general secretary of Reporters Sans Frontières, in a letter of protest to Nepal’s Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said, "The Nepalese government ... has allowed torture of journalists and human rights activists to become commonplace...We urge you to order the security forces to stop these acts of torture. We also call on you to promptly investigate the circumstances of this murder."

A diplomat in Kathmandu talking about Krishna Sen,

quoted in a report by the BBC said, "There is a body and it has marks consistent with torture."

Krishna Sen was the editor of two newspapers—the weekly Janadesh and the Janadisha daily, which openly supported the Maoist People’s War in Nepal. On November 28, 2001, the Nepalese government declared a state of emergency and unleashed its army to wage a "search-and-destroy campaign" in the countryside against the People’s War. The police raided the offices of Janadesh and Janadisha , arrested staff members and confiscated office equipment. After this, 37-year-old Krishna Sen went underground.

Under the state of emergency, all kinds of political and civil rights have been suspended and all Maoists have been declared "terrorists." The government issued a list of Maoists with a "price on their head" and Krishna Sen was reportedly on this list.

On May 20, the police arrested Krishna Sen, along with three others. At the end of June, Reporters Sans Frontiers (Reporters Without Borders)—which defends imprisoned journalists and freedom of the press throughout the world—reported that Krishna Sen’s body had been handed over to his family for cremation. RSF said the government had tortured Sen, trying to get him to reveal his contacts with Maoist leaders.

The weekly newspaper Nepali Jana Astha gave a detailed account of Sen’s torture and death in custody and said the police had manufactured a fake encounter to justify the murder and even prepared a medical report to support this story. The Nepalese government refused to say anything about what happened to Krishna Sen.

Organizations of journalists and legal and human rights activists in Nepal and internationally have condemned this murder and are waging a campaign to force the Nepalese government to release a detailed account of what happened to Krishna Sen. In a sign of protest many journalists put on black armbands. A commentary in the mainstream Kathmandu Post said: "Sadly, the nation has not been told in what circumstances apparently an unarmed citizen’s life was taken. His only custodian, since May 20—the state—has maintained a mysterious and mischievous silence on the sordid saga. Total silence or feigning ignorance about the Sen episode by the concerned agencies of the state is all the more serious and reprehensible. On the other hand, this silence only confirms that Sen met his end in a gruesome manner that words cannot explain. The continued silence on the part of the Deuba government in the Sen case will be taken as proof of connivance at the highest political level."

Krishna Sen was first arrested back in April 1999. He was detained under provisions of the "Public Security Act," which sanctions preventive detention for those considered a threat to domestic security and tranquility. Sen’s arrest was prompted by that week’s edition of Janadesh , which featured an interview with Baburam Bhattarai, a top leader in the CPN (Maoist). The same day Sen was arrested, police confiscated 20,000 copies of Janadesh in order to prevent the interview from being widely read.

The Supreme Court ordered Sen’s release on August 10, 1999. But police and district officials then conspired to keep Sen in detention by forging release papers and re-arresting him on trumped-up charges.

In February 2000, prison authorities forced Sen to sign papers certifying his release from jail. But instead of being released, Sen was secretly transferred to another district where new false charges were filed against him and he was re-arrested for illegal arms. His case was repeatedly postponed throughout the year, despite widespread protests from journalistic and human rights organizations. Finally, in March of 2001, Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled Sen’s detention illegal and ordered his release.

On the afternoon of March 15, Krishna Sen was turned over to a delegation from the Federation of Nepalese Journalists. Upon arriving in Kathmandu he said, "I will continue to write for the sake of the people and the country." Krishna Sen dedicated his life to the liberation of the people. And for this, the Nepalese government targeted him with harassment, imprisonment, torture and death. Revolutionaries mourn at the news of his death. And freedom-loving people everywhere should expose and protest this act of vicious brutality by the reactionary ruling class in Nepal.

The state of emergency gave security forces new powers to detain people, and the November 26 raid on Janadesh was the start of a new intense campaign by the government to control and crack down on the press. At the same time, the Royal Nepalese Army launched a vicious "search and destroy" campaign in the countryside—that is going on to this day—killing hundreds of people suspected of being Maoist "sympathizers" or guerrillas.

In the weeks after the state of emergency began, many more Maoist journalists were arrested. But the target of the government’s assault on the press quickly widened to include all kinds of newspapers, and TV and radio stations. Many mainstream editors and writers were picked up and interrogated—not because they were suspected of being Maoists, but simply because they had tried to run news stories about the People’s War.

All kinds of civil rights have been suspended. Battles were going on in the countryside involving hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. Peasants in the countryside were being killed by government forces. For the first time, government soldiers were being killed by guerrillas. This was the biggest news in the country. Yet the government was determined to prevent reporters from covering what was going on. Journalists were banned from battle areas, the army told the media they had to get permission before publishing any news about military affairs and that the only news of battles allowed would be those news reports issued by the government.

Journalists were picked up because they had run photos of or quoted Maoist leaders. At least one editor reported he had been ordered to "stop publishing any statements from the Maoists." Some editors were targeted because their newspapers had been critical of the state of emergency or government corruption. On November 28, 2001 authorities seized all copies of the Kathmandu Post—the largest English-language daily in Nepal — after the newspaper ran a photo of several Maoist leaders. Government officials warned the paper’s editors not to publish articles or photos that "glorify" the Maoist movement. The same day, the Ministry of Information and Communication issued a statement listing several topics not allowed,including reports that "create hatred and disrespect against His Majesty the King and the Royal Family"; "Anything that is likely to create hatred against [the] Royal Nepal Army, police and civil servants and lower their morale and dignity"; "News that support[s] Maoist terrorist[s] including individual[s] or groups"; and "Any matters that aim at overthrowing elected government." The statement also encouraged the media to publish official news and reports "regarding bravery and achievements of [the] Royal Nepal Army, police and civil servants."

In the first six months of emergency rule, more than 100 journalists and other media workers were detained. Many of these people have been members of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ), the mainstream organization of journalists in Nepal. All this — the state of emergency, the crackdown on the press, and the government’s whole war on the People’s War — could not be carried out without military, political, and economic support from India and the major imperialist powers. India has stepped up its supply of arms to the Royal Nepalese Army. And the United States, Britain, Russia, and Germany have all pledged to help the Nepalese government fight the Maoists as part of the worldwide "war on terrorism." And Nepal’s King Gyanendra recently went to China where he was promised help in fighting the People’s War.

The Kathmandu human rights group INSEC interviewed individuals tortured by the police or the military and says prisoners are forced to keep their heads down all day long and are being interrogated once a day. They are forced to undress and then beaten with an iron bar. Those who survive and are released are told they will be killed if they talk about what happened to them in prison. A few days after the state of emergency was declared, Shankar Khanal, who worked with the state-owned radio station Radio Nepal and the Space Time daily, was arrested along with Ganga Bista, a correspondent with the Nepalese state-owned television and local newspaper Chautari Times . The two young journalists were interrogated and tortured. INSEC reported that "The police forced them to take off their clothes, then struck them and splashed them, first with hot water, then with cold water. And they did this several times a day." The two men had covered many Maoist demonstrations in the past and the torture was aimed at getting them to reveal the names of their "Maoist contacts." After protests from human rights organizations, Shankar Khanal was released in March. But Ganga Bista remains in custody.

In March, Ramnath Mainali, a lawyer who was working on behalf of Janadesh , was arrested by a dozen plainclothes members of the security force. Mainali had defended, among others, Janadesh editors Govinda Acharya and Krishna Sen.

Relatives of political prisoners have also been harassed, even arrested, for demanding their legal rights. Govinda Acharya’s wife, Sabitree Acharya, was arrested by the Army after she filed a writ of habeas corpus, trying to get her husband released. Sabitree has now become one of those who have "disappeared."

Journalist, legal and human rights organizations in Nepal and internationally have been protesting the blatant censorship of the news in Nepal and the arrest, torture and murder of journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) from New York, and the Paris-based Reporters Sans FrontiŠres (Reporters without Borders) sent fact-finding teams to Nepal and have both issued extensive reports, exposing the government’s campaign of repression against the press. Both groups have been organizing protests and finding different ways to let people know about what is happening to journalists in Nepal.

The team from Reporters Sans FrontiŠres (RSF) met with journalists, managing editors, human rights activists, and lawyers and families of imprisoned journalists. One Kathmandu journalist told RSF, "The litany of deaths announced daily in the press and the presence of military patrols in the streets of Kathmandu have created an atmosphere of war that we have never experienced before."

Over 100 journalists and other media people are currently being held for alleged acts of terrorism under the government’s ‘Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Ordinance’ (TADO). None of them has been sentenced, and their families have been prevented from initiating any habeas corpus procedures. The CPJ delegation, including Pulitzer Prize winner Josh Friedman, met with many of the journalists who have been abducted by security forces and held incommunicado. The group discovered that the majority of arrests were carried out illegally and that many of those arrested had been abused. Some journalists said they had been disappointed that the international community did not challenge the government’s sweeping attacks on the press back in November. Journalists also told CPJ members that it has been virtually impossible to get accurate information about the government’s military offensive against the Maoists — and that casualty figures provided by the Defense Ministry were mostly unreliable.

In the first week of July the Federation of Nepalese Journalist (FNJ) began a 15-day campaign against the government’s repression of the media. This comes amid widespread resentment over the custodial death of Krishna Sen, editor of Jan Disha. The campaign includes boycott of programmes attended by ministers and non-publication of photographs of Prime Minister, Deuba. On August 9th morning Nepalese media personnel marched through various towns and cities of Nepal burning lanterns and candles to protest repression by the government. More than 200 media personnel, along with human rights activists marched on the streets of Khatmandu. They claimed that, since the imposition of the Emergency, over 130 media workers have been arrested and 11 have ‘disappeared’. These demonstrations were part of the above campaign by the FNJ to "end torture, persecution, and extra-judicial killing of journalists".

Meanwhile in India there is growing resentment against the Indian government’s increasing interference in the internal affairs of Nepal. The deportation of Nepalese intellectuals from Delhi, without even an inquiry and against the very orders of the High Court is an indication of the brazenness of the Indian rulers against the people of Nepal. It is for the people of Nepal to decide whom they prefer — the genocidal rule of the Gynandra/Deuba clique or the Maoist revolutionaries. The Indian expansionists have no right to decide on behalf of the Nepalese people as to who should rule Nepal.

There is urgent need for the people of India to unite with the people of Nepal to fight the fascist rulers of both countries and oppose the Indian expansionist’s growing role in Nepal.

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