Raid is latest in long line of royal crackdowns on media
The latest attack on the media by Nepal's royal government is the most dramatic since it came to power in a coup in February.
According to a report issued last month by the International Press Freedom Mission to Nepal, a group of 11 international organisations including the UN, 'media practitioners are summoned almost every day to barracks and police stations to 'explain' particular news items and editorials'.
The government's hardline approach to the press began the day it seized power on February 1, when soldiers were sent to newsrooms across Kathmandu to check what was being written and broadcast. Controls seemed to slacken since then, but a law passed last month imposed firm new controls.
The government believes the media is damaging its campaign against Maoist rebels. Human rights groups say the government wants to silence reports of abuses by the security forces.
Kunda Dixit, the editor of the Nepali Times, says FM radio stations are being targeted because they reach thousands of rural listeners who cannot read, or cannot afford a daily newspaper.
Nepal's independent radio sector was once the freest in South Asia, he says, and Sagarmatha FM, which was shut yesterday, was the first independent station in the region.
Although Sagarmatha is the first station to be silenced, it is not the first to be targeted. Police last month removed equipment from Kantipur FM that the station said relayed programmes to 5 million mostly rural listeners in eastern Nepal.
Nepal's political parties say the government's campaign against the media proves it is determined to crush democratic opposition and return to the absolute monarchy that held sway until 1990. They call the government autocratic and unconstitutional and say municipal elections scheduled for February will be a sham without freedom of speech. Many foreign diplomats agree.
Instead, the parties have pledged to boycott the elections, and last week reached an understanding with Maoist rebels that lays out a road map for a ceasefire and elections under United Nations supervision.
Perhaps the government fears the agreement will further dent its popularity.
King Gyanendra is on a tour of Africa, but the latest crackdown suggests no compromise is likely, even as his political isolation deepens.
