December 3, 2010
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981 to promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. CPJ has a full-time staff of 23 at its New York headquarters, including area specialists for each major world region. CPJ has a Washington, D.C. representative, and consultants stationed around the world. A 35-member board of prominent journalists directs CPJ's activities. The organization does not accept government funding.
Two days ago, CPJ issued a report indicating its concern over a violent attack and continuing threats against Nepalese journalist Shreedeep Rayamajhi in connection with his online reporting.
Rayamajhi told CPJ that he began receiving threatening e-mails from an unknown sender in June, warning him to stop writing and to erase his profile from online news outlets. The e-mail's sender did not say what report sparked their anger. On November 16, several men attacked him while he was riding his motorcycle home from work in Kathmandu. The assault left him with a fractured shoulder and sprained ankle. In the following days, Rayamajhi received more e-mails warning him that he was "still on our hit list."
Rayamajhi told CPJ that he fears his life is in danger. He said he has stopped his voluntary reporting on travel and current events, including politics and crime, for CNN iReport, global news website GroundReport, and other online outlets.
"The threats against Shreedeep Rayamajhi must be taken seriously before more violence occurs," said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator. "We call on authorities investigate and punish whoever is responsible for assaulting and threatening him."
In so much as Rayamajhi posted a video and wrote about a controversial general strike organized by Maoist protesters, it is suspected that Maoists are behind his persecution.
Interestingly, police in Kathmandu did not respond to CPJ's phone calls.
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As previously reported in this blog, journalists in Nepal have been frequent targets of violent attack. Three media owners have been gunned down in 2010 alone.
In February, chairman of Channel Nepal television and the satellite Space Time Network Jamim Shah was gunned down on the road by masked gunmen.
Less than a month later, publisher Arun Singhaniya was murdered when an unidentified group on motorcycles shot him outside his home.
At the time, Nepali Times editor Kunda Dixit said that, although it remained unclear if Singhaniya’s murder was connected to coverage of his news outlets, “It does look very ominous, since they killed Uma Singh, who worked for [Singhaniya’s] radio and newspaper last year.”
In January 2009, Uma Singh, a radio journalist in her 20s, was hacked to death by between 12 and 20 men in her room in the southern city of Janakpur.
Most recently, on July 22, 2010, there was the killing of Devi Prasad Dhital, the chairman of Nepal’s broadcaster Radio Tulsipur FM. Dhital died after being shot several times while riding a motorcycle in Tulsipur, in Nepal’s mid-western district of Dang, about 450 miles (280 km) west of Kathmandu. A group of at least four assailants shot Dhital at least three times in the chest.
Clearly the threat to journalists casts a shadow over Nepal’s young, emerging media.
But it is even more disturbing that, to date, none of the journalists’ assassins have been brought to justice.
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