1.      The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) wishes to highlight the continuing need for closer monitoring by the Human Rights Council and the international community of the renewed threats and attacks that human rights defenders working in Nepal have had to face since the beginning of the year. Worries about potential reprisals from the former belligerents have arisen following progress in the investigation and prosecution of cases of human rights violations committed during the conflict. …

2.      The attacks have intensified following the arrest of Nepal Army officer Colonel Lama in the United Kingdom on 3 January 2013. Colonel Lama was arrested and he is facing two charges of torture, for acts allegedly committed when he was in charge of the Gorusinghe Army Barracks in Kapilvastu, in 2005. In spite of the seriousness of the allegations pending against him, no legal action had been taken in Nepal…

3.      Further, the government has openly taken a stance against justice and accountability in the case of Dekendra Raj Thapa. Mr. Thapa was a journalist forcibly disappeared and murdered by Maoist cadres in Dhailekh District in 2004, at the heart of the decade long internal conflict. His body was exhumed in the jungle on 26 June 2008 and in August 2008 his wife filed a First Information Report on the abduction and murder of her husband. The police did not conduct an investigation under the pretext that the case would be dealt with by yet to be established transitional justice mechanisms. The legal fallacy of this pretext has been repeatedly exposed by Nepali NGOs and the ALRC to this council. Following a writ of mandamus issued by the Appellate Court of Surkhet District, the police eventually arrested five of the accused on 5 January 2013. This has triggered a wave of indignation from the ranks of the government and its supporters, with the then Prime Minister being reported to have ordered the Attorney General’s Office and Police Headquarters to stop the investigations into the case. His orders were not followed through though and the police are continuing their investigation into the case. In a public intervention, the former Prime Minister deplored the arrests and asserted that conflict-related cases should be dealt with by transitional justice mechanisms. Those arrested remain in judicial custody.

4.      Both cases have triggered a series of attacks against human rights defenders …

a.       Public attacks by politicians and members of the former government against the work of human rights defenders, trying to turn the popular opinion against them.

b.       The spokesperson of the Maoist party, Agni Sapkota, has also accused the NGOs, specifically referring by name to a leading human rights NGO, Advocacy Forum and its Chairperson Mandira Sharma, of working against national interest in the search for profit, and blamed them for being behind the arrest of Colonel Lama in the UK and of Maoist cadres in Dailekh district. ..

c.       The ALRC is extremely concerned by reports that call for action against human rights defenders were carried out through several media outlets affiliated to the Maoist party, including the weekly magazine Lal Rakshak (Red Defender), the blog Krishnasenonline and various local FM radio stations. They have run programmes throughout January 2013 denouncing the work of human rights defenders, claiming that it is detrimental to the peace process. Further, they called for violent action to be taken against human rights defenders. ….

d.       Worryingly, those calls for “direct actions” against human rights defenders have translated into acts of violence.  On 28 February 2013, in the jungle of Srinagar Mr. Yadav Prasad Bastola, Executive Director of the Human Rights Alliance, was assaulted and beaten with iron rods by 4 unidentified persons…

e.       …..On January 26, newspapers reported that a group of twenty two journalists based in Dailekh district fled the district after being threatened by local Maoist cadres on the eve of a visit by the Prime Minister. They were threatened to stop covering the legal development in Mr. Thapa’s case.

for the full report see: http://www.humanrights.asia/news/alrc-news/human-rights-council/hrc23/ALRC-CWS-23-07-2013

PS  The Asian Legal Resource Centre is an independent regional non-governmental organisation holding general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. It is the sister organisation of the Asian Human Rights Commission.