A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Bulletin #35: Five Student Leaders Arrested

On April 26, security dressed in plain clothes raided the house where Gagan Thapa, Subodh Acharya and Sudan Adhikari were staying and arrested them. The officials did not provide any reasons for their arrest and their whereabouts are not known at this time. The security people also went through their personal documents, including books and articles.

A day earlier, Keshav Singh, national president of Nepal Student Union and Sanu Shrestha, District President of Nepal Student Union, were also arrested.

The INSN has launched a campaign on their behalf.

Friends,

This is a public appeal for you to join the campaign to publicize the case of the illegal arrest of Gagan Thapa, Subodh Acharya and Sandesh Adhikari, today at around 3:00 am from Kathmandu. All the three are student leaders associated with Nepal Student Union (NSU). Gagan Thapa is the ex-General Secretary of NSU, and perhaps one of the most popular pro-democracy leaders of contemporary Nepal.

Two leaders from the same student union were arrested by the police yesterday. They included Keshav Singh, the President of NSU and Sanu Maharjan, the president of Lalitpur district chapter of NSU. They were arrested from a funeral procession of late Sadhan Adhikari, a known freedom fighter associted with CPN (UML). The funeral procession was being held in the party office of CPN (UML), but the police did not let that happen.

The police vandalized the party office, raided rooms reportedly to arrest Khimalal Bhattarai, the president of All Nepal National Free Student Union (ANNFSU). But Bhattarai escaped arrest. The General Secretary of the ANNFSU, Thakur Gaire was arrested earlier from one of the demonstrations in Kathmandu, later released from custody by court order and rearrested by plain clothes security personnel once again last week. His whereabouts are not known. All these incidents reveal, once again, the systematic targeting of the pro-democracy students by this dictatorial regime of Gyanendra Shah.

In another incident, police also seized the video camera of Mr. Ajay Shivakoti, a journalist and human rights defender. Ajay is a television journalist with Image Metro TV Channel, a district committee member of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists Lalitpur district, and a long-time volunteer with Collective Campaign for Peace (COCAP), a national network of peace and human rights organizations in Nepal.

These cases are systematic attempts to silence the democratic middle ground in Nepal by Gyanendra Shah. They need to be widely publicized around the world. Let the donors realize what kind of regime they are funding and providing legitimacy to. Let the suppliers of military aid to this regime be questioned by their own people about the purpose of their assistance to this regime.

We can use INSN.org to launch a campaign. This will be a test case for us. It is proposed that (a) human rights volunteers in Nepal do a fact finding mission in a proper and professional way, (b) they produce a report, with the details, a summary section and an appeal that can be submitted to governments and agencies around the world as well as within Nepal, (c) this appeal and report will be posted on INSN website, and circulated to other websites as well, (d) INSN members and friends in all the countries mobilize their network, and pass it on to media and submit memorandum to dozens of governments, embassies and the UN on the same day, in a coordinated manner, and (e) a core group is formed to see through the entire campaign.

Let Gagan and other freedom fighter students feel, that their arrests did not silence the pro-democracy movement, rather spread the movement further. Let there be no peace to this dictatorial regime, the dictator himself. We’ll need to see to that.

Suggestions invited. Campaign volunteers invited even more!

INSN is the International Nepal Solidarity Network, which has activists in over a dozen countries around the world who are working to bring democracy to Nepal. Visit their website for regular updates related to the Nepal crisis.