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Nepal Radio Stations Defy Government News Ban

Posted on: Sunday, 3 July 2005, 03:00 CDT

Text of report by Nepalese newspaper Kantipur on 3 July

Kathmandu, 2 June: FM radio stations across the country broadcast news at 8 p.m. [local time] Saturday [2 July] evening. The news they broadcast was the memorandum they submitted to the king calling for the ban on private FM stations broadcasting news and current affairs programmes to be lifted.

The memorandum was handed over to the king on Friday when they attended the king's birthday reception. They stressed that the ban is illegal. In the written appeal, submitted to the royal palace, radio workers expressed surprise over the restrictions which they said were contradictory to the letter and spirit of the royal address of 1 February.

They also argued that the radio stations reached nearly 70 per cent of the Nepali population, the majority of whom are poor and illiterate, and that the information disseminated by the stations had played a vital role in nation-building.

Since government orders explicitly state that the ban on news is to be in place during the state of emergency, the appeal has argued that it is inexplicable why the ban is still in force while the state of emergency is no longer in place.

The appeal also cited the constitution, the National Transmission Act, the Supreme Court verdict of 2001 and licenses awarded to the FM stations as reasons for lifting the restrictions. In the statement released on Saturday, radio workers urged Panchayat [party- less]-era "media experts" to go through those documents before giving their expert views on FM stations.

Source: BBC Monitoring South Asia

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