KATHMANDU: International human rights groups said on Wednesday King Gyanendra’s lifting of emergency rule in Nepal could be a “tactical ploy” to persuade military donors to resume shipments to his ill-equipped army. Gyanendra ended emergency rule last weekend after seizing power February 1, a move that prompted India and Britain to suspend military supplies to Nepal’s army battling to crush a bloody Maoist revolt.
The United States is mulling similar action. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists said the king’s lifting of emergency rule “might be a tactical ploy to convince” military donors to resume military aid.
“Without specific and direct action by the king to an immediate return to full democratic, constitutional rule, this could simply turn out to be a cynical attempt to convince India and others ... to resume their military aid,” the groups said in a statement.
The groups noted the lifting of emergency rule was immediately followed by an order banning “public gatherings, meetings or any kind of protest programmes in public spaces and roads.”
“A key test for the king is whether he will now allow journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders to operate freely,” said Purna Sen, director of the Asia Pacific Programme at Amnesty International.
“If Nepal’s once vibrant civil society continues to be suppressed, the lifting of the state of emergency will be meaningless,” he said in a statement. On Tuesday, The Kathmandu Post, a leading Nepalese newspaper, described the country’s media as “reeling under direct and indirect censorship, harassment and intimidation.”
Citizens “must be able to exercise their full range of rights under the constitution,” the groups said.
Since the emergency ended, several senior political leaders have been freed but hundreds of other party officials remain in jail, including 175 whose detentions were extended May 2 for another three months, the groups said.—AFP
