KATHMANDU: An international media group on Saturday claimed Nepali media persons were working under constant threat from armed groups and more than 214 cases of violence against the media were reported in the country in 2008.

“The press is free, but journalists work in fear of reprisals from either armed groups or political militants,” Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), said in a statement issued on the World Press Freedom Day.

The risks have reached horrifying levels as more than 214 threats and assaults were reported in 2008, especially in the southern plains of the country, RSF said. Though many media houses flourished after Nepal became a republic, there is a growing lack of security for journalists, it said.

The continuing violent acts perpetrated by Maoists puts its willingness to respect media independence further in doubt, the statement concludes.

Militants in the Maoist-affiliated Young Communist League (YCL) and the All Nepal Communications Printing and Publications Workers Union (ANCPPWU), are regularly implicated in violence against media seen as hostile to the ruling party, it added.

The statement also accused the authorities of having failed to bring the guilty to book.

“A pattern has emerged in attacks against the press in which journalists who report critically on events are subjected to violence and those carrying it out are not punished,” said the statement.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ had promised a delegation organisations fighting for press freedom, including RSF, in the beginning of 2009 that investigations into cases of journalists who have been killed or disappeared would be reopened.