Death of a scribe

Nineteen journalists have been killed in Nepal since 1992. The latest addition to the toll was Yadav Poudel who was murdered Tuesday night by unidentified assailants in Jhapa district. The motive behind the killing of the 40-year-old journalist who had been working as a correspondent for Avenues Television, Rajdhani Daily as well as the local Mechi Times is as yet unclear. The Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) on Wednesday demanded that the government probe the murder will all seriousness and is organizing a series of protest programs to force the authorities to bring the culprits to book. We believe FNJ is rightly concerned that the state does not seem to be doing enough to protect the lives of Nepali journalists. Last year, CPN-UML aligned Youth Force cadres brutally thrashed Khilanath Dhakal, a Biratnagar-based reporter for Nagarik daily, for reporting on an attack by Youth Force members on a team of police.



What was particularly saddening about that episode was that even while the culprits were well known, there was tremendous political pressure upon the local law enforcement body not to initiate cases against them. In such a dismal situation, the journalist fraternity in Nepal is justifiably skeptic of the state’s and by extension the major parties’ seriousness in protecting them from harm. Thus although six people have been detained in relation to Poudel´s death on Tuesday, the fraternity is by no means assured that the guilty will be brought to justice. True, the lives of Nepali journalists is a lot more secure than during the days of the insurgency, when anyone could be arbitrarily arrested by state forces for being a Maoist sympathizer or prosecuted by the rebels on the pretext of snitching on them. Thankfully, Nepal is no Pakistan, where the rising sectarian tensions led to the death of 10 journalists in 2011. Or the Middle East, where in the course of the Arab Spring 20 journalists lost their lives in the same period.



But that can be no reason for complaisance. Nepal, while it has emerged from a decade-long bloody conflict, is still in grips of a prolonged transition. During this period, journalists reporting on and writing on potentially controversial issues like state restructuring and ethnicity are likely to face elevated a grave threat to their wellbeing. Thus while the state is looking to devise new institutions for the new federal setup, it is important that proper mechanisms be adopted to safeguard the lives and wellbeing of journalists, who will have a vital role to play as members of the fourth organ in the new political order. We urge the government to ensure that Poudel’s death is properly investigated and bring his killers to book. We see Poudel’s death, as the first journalist death in 2011, as a test case of how serious the state is about carrying out its obligation of protecting journalists in the new setup. If the authorities don’t manage to get to the bottom of Poudel’s death, it could set a dangerous precedent for a country that is likely to witness some form of political unrest for years to come.

Related story

Sejon condemns death threat to Nagarik scribe