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Saturday, Feb 26, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Of kings, coups, and censorship

By Laxmi Murthy

Nepal's King and his men have targeted the country's thriving independent media, which have fought back using satire.

DOES IT need a state of emergency to clear the garbage on the streets? Can only a complete clampdown on the independent media ensure that there are no long queues at petrol pumps? Is widespread detention of journalists, political leaders and human rights activists the only way to guarantee the citizens of Nepal adequate food, water, electricity, health and education?

It would appear so, if one were to believe the middle and upper class residents of the Kathmandu Valley. Eerily reminiscent of the Indian emergency in 1975, where trains running on time and availability of parking space were offered as justification for the brutal onslaught on fundamental rights, one can only hope that Nepal will not have to suffer for two years before it can break the stranglehold.

Nepal's fledgling democracy of barely a decade and a half is in danger of being grounded even before it can learn to fly. And what better symbol to crush than the free press? Nepal's thriving independent media, rather than being allowed to move towards more professionalism, has been cornered into defending the rights that it savoured for about 15 years following the establishment of multi-party democracy, however faulty.

Since the royal coup on February 1, when King Gyanendra dismissed the Government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and assumed executive powers, he and the army have throttled the media by directly enforcing censorship through armed military intervention and indirectly fostering a climate of fear and self-censorship. As a result of this control, independent news has been stifled, six journalists are known to be under detention, media organisations have been shut down, and almost 1000 journalists rendered jobless. No less important, the public has been deprived of its right to know.

The control was crude to begin with. Journalists watched in horror when, even before the king's address ended, at about 10.15 am, armed personnel barged into media houses, TV and radio stations and demanded that work be stopped. Phone and internet lines were totally cut for three days, and intermittently and arbitrarily turned on and off for a few hours at random. Mobile phone connections continue to be cut off. For about four days, armed security personnel sat in the newsrooms and went through the copy. Editors and senior journalists of the country's largest circulating Nepali daily were summoned and told in no uncertain terms that if they did not follow the official directives, "no one could guarantee their safety."

The government-owned publication Gorkhapatra on February 3 published a notice that "considering the nation and national interest, His Majesty's Government has banned for six months any interview, article, news, notice, view or personal opinion that goes against the letter and spirit of the Royal Proclamation on 1 Feb 2005 and that directly or indirectly supports destruction and terrorism." And to show that the King meant business, any dissidents were summarily dealt with. Tara Nath Dahal, President of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ), the umbrella body of journalists in the country, on February 2 came out with a strong statement against the coup and has been hounded by security personnel ever since. Bishnu Nisthuri, Secretary General of the FNJ, was picked up two days later, taken to an army camp and blindfolded for almost a day. Despite a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court, he was held for nearly two weeks and released finally on February 25.

On February 7 the local administration in the mid-western town of Nepalgunj issued a set of rigorous conditions against publishers of local newspapers. Newspapers were prohibited from publishing news that "could have negative impact upon the country's sovereignty, territorial integrity and the law and order." Nothing that may "undermine in any way the institution of monarchy and the Royal proclamation of Feb 1" could be published. News relating to bandhs (strikes) called by Maoists, and the loss of life and property caused by the Maoists against the security forces and government agencies was prohibited, while reporting civilian loss due to Maoist activities was permitted. In a clampdown on exposing official corruption, reporting irregularities on the part of any government agencies and their weaknesses could only be published after "careful examination" and could not "demoralise" civil servants. To rub salt in the wounds, it was mandatory for newspapers to send a copy of the published newspaper free-of-cost to the monitoring team!

Even as crude control gave way to "self censorship," and gun-toting army censors were replaced by fresh faced military intelligence "boys" in civil dress, the Nepali media launched a subversive resistance. Satire was replete in the tongue-in-cheek comebacks. For instance, The Kathmandu Post, Nepal's largest circulating English-language daily, ran an absurd editorial titled "Socks in Society" — on how socks without holes are a prestige symbol in a poor country like Nepal! The weekly Nepali Times ran an editorial criticising the rise in tree felling — trees being the symbol of not only democracy, but the Nepali Congress Party as well, whose leaders had been arrested. The Nepali Times and Himal Khabarpatrika, for instance, left blank spaces where the copy had been censored, encouraging the reader to read between the gaping holes. Another tactic was a pointed silence, as if to say, "Alright, you want to silence us, we will be quiet," weeklies like Deshantar, Bimarsh and Sanghu have been leaving a blank space where editorials usually appear. This has led the Chief District Officer of Kathmandu to summon five editors and interrogate them for over two hours. They were freed only after signing a statement undertaking to report to the authorities whenever summoned.

Some publications chose to demonstrate their resistance visually. When informed that the Nepali Times could not carry a certain "provocative" column, nor could the space be left blank, the editors were forced to fill up the space. So there appeared a picture of a bawling, grimacing infant born on February 1, with the ironic caption "10 days old." Another form of subversion was by an Editor of a Nepali weekly who simply deleted his name where it should have appeared as "Editor and Publisher". "I am no longer the editor of my own publication," he said. "If the security personnel who censor my copy would reveal their names, I'd put them down as the `true' editors," he said wryly.

Starting with Radio Sagarmatha, one of Nepal's most popular independent radio stations, all FM radio stations have been prohibited from broadcasting news forcing up to 800 radio journalists out of work. There are 56 registered FM stations in Nepal, with 47 in actual operation. They have a wide outreach, and their listeners in remote areas have no other form of news. With a widespread non-literate population, radio is an excellent — sometimes the only — means of communication. By cutting off the access to FM news, the King is denying the Nepali public of a vital source of independent news. The BBC Nepali news service is now the only source of news, and since its transmission on FM is banned, scores of people, desperate for information, are queuing up to buy short wave radios.

And what, ultimately, is the purpose of this clampdown? The state of emergency and virtual martial law is ostensibly aimed at decimating the Maoist movement. But even casual observation in Kathmandu will reveal that the military seems rather preoccupied in controlling the media, arresting protesters, tailing journalists, and monitoring human rights activists and harmless gatherings of anxious citizens lamenting the state of society, to actually be dealing effectively with the Maoists.

Reports filtering in reveal that, contrary to government propaganda, the Maoist-imposed economic blockade in protest over the Kings' takeover, launched on February 13, the 10th anniversary of the "People's War" continued to disrupt vehicular movement on most of the highways in Nepal. Though some passenger buses and trucks loaded with essential goods have been escorted by the army on the highways, media reports reveal that thousands of goods and passengers vehicles are stranded along the highways due to obstructions placed by the rebels at various points on the highways connecting Kathmandu. Prices of vegetables, fruits and salt are soaring as the supply of food items from the Terai area has been completely halted. Telephone lines connecting Kathmandu with some outside districts are suspended at random. On "Democracy Day" on February 18, the residents of Kathmandu woke to find the phone lines cut — to prevent any mass mobilisation against the King. The lack of reliable independent news perforce encourages rumours and misinformation. Reports of bombing of schools, bridges and roads by Maoists are often unable to be confirmed.

"Aha," say some media watchers, "Now journalists can talk about `real' issues like poverty and underdevelopment, than be preoccupied with the shenanigans of political parties." But surely it does not need state censorship on news to encourage development journalism and get journalists reporting about social issues, the environment, gender and development?

(The author was recently in Nepal on a mission of the International Federation of Journalists.)

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