Kathmandu, September 8:

Journalists at the state-owned English daily, The Rising Nepal (TRN), today handed over an official protest letter to Gorkhapatra Corporation’s executive chairman Om Sharma, demanding ouster of the newly-appointed editor Pushkar Mathema.

Before being appointed as the acting editor-in-chief of the TRN last week, Mathema was the editor of TRN’s sister publication Yuva Manch monthly.

“Mathema’s appointment at TRN oversteps the employees’ regulation that bars moving journalists from one language group to another,” the protesting journalists said. “As many as 98 per cent journalists — 18 out of 20 — are against Mathema’s appointment and they have signed the protest letter against him,” one of the signatories said. The journalists have opposed the humiliation meted out to former editor, Yuba Nath Lamsal, by the corporation management. Lamsal has been shunted to an administrative unit under the executive chairman.

Lamsal, a UML sympathiser, has been given a new job description that includes reviewing the corporation publications on a daily basis and making a presentation to Sharma.

“This is an utter humiliation of a senior journalist and we cannot tolerate it,” the journalists said. The corporation publishes the country’s oldest newspaper Gorkhapatra daily, English daily The Rising Nepal, Madhupark literary monthly and a few other magazines.

The protesting journalists said they would be forced to announce strong protests if their demands were not addressed.