Kathmandu , Nov 11 - Police Friday arrested five people in Rajbiraj of Saptari district who tried to burn the copies of NGOs and INGOs Code of Conduct while protesting the government decision to introduce it.
Among the arrested include Durga Kumar Thapa and Bhagwati Chaudhary central members of Non Governmental Organization (NGO) Federation Nepal; NGO activists Sameer Jha and Jangali Singh and journalist Prakash Khatiwada, reported our district correspondent.
The government Thursday issued the code of conduct to monitor the functioning of NGOs and INGOs operating in the country amidst widespread criticism.
The NGO Federation of Nepal, an association of over 2,600 NGOs, in an emergency meeting on Thursday night, decided to defy the code by organising different protest programmes across the country.
A protest rally is being organized in the capital at 3 this afternoon to object the government decision. The federation said that similar protest programmes will be organized in various districts today.
Amnesty International, International Federation of INGOs, the European Union and International Commission of Jurists have already flayed the code of conduct stating that it violated Nepal's international human rights obligations.
Issuing a statement today the FNJ general secretary Mahendra Bista said, "This has upset the Nepalese media's faith in the independent judiciary of the country."
"Nevertheless, with the Supreme Court's interim order in connection to Nepal FM still in force, the Federation would like to assure all concerned that the Nepalese FM stations will face no obstacles in broadcasting their news and news-related programs," reads the statement.
After the supreme court order Kantipur FM 96.1, a sister organization of the Kantipur Publications, has suspended broadcasting Kantipur Diary- its news based programme, following the Supreme Court's (SC) decision that gave a green signal to the government to implement the recently promulgated media ordinance.
Issuing a statement within hours of the SC's decision, the Kantipur FM's Managing Director Binod Raj Gyawali said, "We moved the SC to stop the implementation of the media ordinance and we have been continuing airing the news related programmes following the SC's stay order to the government on October 27."
The statement concludes by saying, "However, on November 11 the SC's special bench of Chief Justice Dilip Kumar Poudel, Justices Kedar Prasad Giri and Sharada Prasad Pandit instead of issuing a stay order said the petition would be further studied with priority. So we have decided to suspend the airing of news with immediate effect from today."
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