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MEDIA-NEPAL: Court Refuses to Restrain King's Gov't

Marty Logan
Inter Press Service (IPS)

Sun., Nov. 13, 2005

KATHMANDU, Nov 11 (IPS) - The future of one of Nepal's best known radio stations, and the country's entire media, was hazy Friday after the Supreme Court refused to issue an order preventing the government from acting against Kantipur FM.

According to sketchy reports in the local media, the court rejected a number of petitions submitted after government officials, backed by soldiers, raided the radio station and seized equipment last month. Kantipur FM is one of many assets in a media group that has been especially critical of King Gyanendra's takeover of the government on Feb. 1.

Officials justified the raid and seizure of transmission equipment by pointing to an ordinance issued days before. It amended the country's media laws to, among other things, ban news broadcasts on all FM stations.

The ordinance also prohibits one entity from owning holdings among the three types of media, widens laws against criticism of the king to include the entire royal family and multiplies 10-fold the penalties for violating the laws.

After raiding the station Oct. 21, officials ordered Kantipur's owners to explain, within 24 hours, why the station should not be closed for violating the new laws. Almost immediately, the Supreme Court stayed that order but on Friday, a special panel, led by Chief Justice Dilip Kumar Poudel, refused to extend that into an interim order, said news reports.

The decision comes as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and their supporters launched a fresh wave of protests against the government, which said it would begin to enforce a new NGO code of conduct.

By mid-afternoon Friday, local media were reporting that five people had been arrested for trying to torch the code in eastern Saptari district. A protest rally was reportedly planned for later in the day in the capital Kathmandu.

The code of conduct and the media ordinance are the most visible indications that the king is going beyond the mandate he announced when he seized power on Feb. 1: to return the country to peace. Instead, it appears the monarch is attempting to reverse social changes introduced since democracy was restored here in 1990.

A decade-long Maoist uprising in the name of 'disadvantaged' groups such as women, Dalits (so-called "untouchables") and indigenous people has left 12,000 people in this country of 25 million dead. King Gyanendra said he fired his appointed government because it failed to end the insurgency.

Nepal's media has been a particular target of the government after Feb. 1, when the king sent soldiers into all newspaper, radio and TV premises. Those censors left weeks later but the cloud of fear that remains has produced self-censorship among many outlets, according to numerous reports in recent months.

On Thursday, the president of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) told IPS that unless democracy is restored, the media will be unable to play the role outlined for it in the 1991 constitution.

That document explicitly guarantees press freedom but government lawyers have argued that the provision was never meant for broadcasters.

Among the media ordinance's provisions, the ban on FM news is the most dangerous, says the FNJ's Bishnu Nisthuri. "It means that illiterate and semi-literate people will be completely cut off from the mainstream," he added.

"This was a tactic of earlier autocratic regimes. If there are only a few conscious people, the population can be easily controlled."

Two-thirds of Nepali males and fewer than half (43 percent) of Nepali females over the age of six were literate in 2001, according to government figures.

On Wednesday, the FNJ led a peaceful, daylong rally in Kathmandu against the media ordinance. Although it attracted only about 3,000 people, Nisthuri said he was encouraged to see so many of them not readily identifiable as supporters of mainstream political parties (which have organised numerous demonstrations in recent months).

But while media professionals can demonstrate in the capital, beyond the legal guarantees of the Kathmandu Valley many have a hard time just doing their job, because of threats from Maoists or the security forces.

For example, soldiers on Wednesday prevented a pro-democracy meeting from taking place in mid-western Dailekh district, said Nisthuri. Journalists who tried to travel to the scene had the tyres of their motorcycles punctured by soldiers, who then ordered the only repair shop to close.

Back in the capital, late Thursday, the NGO Federation of Nepal held an emergency meeting to discuss its reaction to the code of conduct.

"In order to defend the sovereignty, autonomy and independence of non-governmental organisations, we have decided to organise a nationwide movement from tomorrow," announced federation president Arjun Karki.

The code was developed after the king's government amended the Social Welfare Act. The result gives the Social Welfare Council, previously empowered to ''extend support'' to NGOs authority to supervise their activities.

Since the royal takeover, tension has grown between the thousands of NGOs and international NGOs (INGOs) and authorities, who regularly hint that some groups are acting as tools of foreign powers opposed to the king or cooperating with Maoist insurgents.

Among other things, the new code of conduct prevents office bearers of organisations from being involved in political activities. It directs NGOs and INGOs to publicise progress reports and balance sheets annually and inform local government bodies before they implement projects in the area, supported by foreign funding.

NGO Federation leaders accuse the government of wielding the code to punish groups and individuals critical of the state of emergency declared by King Gyanendra. It ended less than three months later but the monarch's council of ministers -- acting in the absence of parliament, which the king dissolved in 2003 -- has since regularly passed ordinances to restrict the activities of the media, unions and other civil society bodies.

On Thursday, a United Nations official warned that the NGO code would violate provisions in many international laws, such as the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. Special Representative Hina Jilani, "calls on the Nepalese Government to reconsider introducing this code of conduct", said a statement on the UN website.