Saturday, Feb 05, 2005
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A meeting of the Nepali Congress Party members in progress, minutes before police raided it in Kathmandu on Friday.
KATHMANDU, FEB. 4. Dozens of paramilitary police personnel raided an underground political meeting and rounded up a group of party officials on Friday, days after the King seized power and banned public gatherings in the Himalayan kingdom. About 50 members of the Nepali Congress-Democratic had gathered in the yard of the party's headquarters when the paramilitary police arrived, surrounding the building. While most of the party members slipped out in the minutes after the raid, about a dozen were left inside when police locked the gates.
Mediapersons held
Reporters and photographers covering the meeting, from both the Nepalese and international media, were also briefly held. Authorities confiscated digital camera disks and videotapes from the journalists — including a team from the Associated Press and Associated Press Television News — before telling them to leave. It was not clear whether the party members were arrested, or were later freed. Nepal has been in political turmoil since Tuesday, when King Gyanendra dismissed the government led by Sher Bahadur Deuba and declared a state of emergency, taking power for himself. He also suspended most civil liberties and cut telephone and Internet lines. In his speech announcing the state of emergency, the King accused the Government of failing to bring the country's communist insurgency under control and call parliamentary elections. The King suspended several provisions of the Constitution, including freedom of the press, speech and expression, peaceful assembly, the right to privacy, and the right against preventive detention. Since then, dozens of politicians have been detained or put under house arrest, including Mr. Deuba, who is a member of the Nepali Congress-Democratic. Strict censorship has also been imposed on Nepal's media. A journalist spoke by phone from Pokhara during a brief period on Friday afternoon when domestic telephone service was restored. The daughter of the former Prime Minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, who heads the Nepali Congress Party, said her 81-year-old father is under house arrest. — AP
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