KATHMANDU, MAY 3
Media activists, senior journalists, and press freedom stakeholders have urged the government to abide by its press freedom commitments.
Participants at a round-table discussion organised by Media Action Nepal today to commemorate World Press Freedom Day said the government should also abide by the various international treaties and commitments that help protect press freedom.
Worrying that conflict era cases of crimes against journalists in Nepal remain unsolved, Laxman Datt Pant, chairperson of MAN, who also co-chairs the Media Freedom Coalition-Consultative Network called on the government of Nepal to abide by its press freedom commitments.
He also reminded that the government should logically conclude Nepal's transitional justice in line with Nepal's international obligations and Supreme Court's orders and precedents.
Meanwhile, Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Govinda Prasad Sharma (Koirala) said that the government was committed to protecting freedom of expression and would neither introduce nor enact any laws aimed at stifling press freedom. "The present government strongly believes in the freedom of the press and does not seek to re-strict it," Sharma said, "The media should be accountable, not controlled."
The minister further expressed the government's willingness to sit and discuss media laws with the relevant stakeholders and urged everyone to come together to review the laws, both existing and in the pipeline, in line with the constitutional mandate.
Sharma also expressed worry that the digital age had increased safety challenges for both journalists and news sources and stressed the need to take steps to address these challenges.
MAN Chairperson Pant said that while the press freedom situation was better in Nepal than other South Asian countries, it was still far from perfect and there was need to conform to the international instruments to which Nepal is a state party. He also called on media organisations like Press Council Nepal and Federation of Nepali Journalists to go beyond their mandate and to stop populist activities. Furthermore, Pant questioned the organisations' involvement in the state apparatus and asked how they could claim to be unaware of various anti-freedom of speech laws introduced by the government while sittingin the consultative and recommendation-giving bodies.
Others present at the event were Gogan Bahadur Hamal, director general of the Department of Information and Broadcasting; Jhabidra Bhusal, chief officer of Press Council Nepal; Kundan Aryal, associate professor at the Central Department of Journalism at Tribhuvan University and officials from other media and digital rights organisations.
Press Council's Bhusal shared that the laws and policies did not match the advancements in technology and reminded everyone that freedom of expression was not absolute and more needed to be done to stop misuse of new media. Hamal said that technological progress would not stop for anyone and requested the media to use it positively.
Aryal, along with experts Taranath Dahal of Freedom Forum, Prabesh Subedi, president of Digital Media Foundation, Babita Basnet, coordinator of Nepal Internet Freedom Working Group, Santosh Sigdel, chairperson of Digital Rights Nepal, Hari Sharan Lamichhane, chief news editor of the state owned Radio Nepal, Rajan Pokhrel, editor of The Himalayan Times, and Kamal Dev Bhattarai, deputy editor of Annapurna Express talked about how internet had pushed traditional media into an existential crisis, caused loss of credibility and made surveillance easy.
A version of this article appears in the print on May 04, 2022, of The Himalayan Times
