According to information before the International Press Institute (IPI), hundreds of journalists have been arrested and detained this week as protests against the state’s current restrictions on reporting continue.

In the most recent development, on 13 June, police in the Kavre district postponed diffusing a bomb in order to intervene in a peaceful protest to arrest over 50 journalists and human rights supporters.

According to reports, a team of policemen who had initially been tasked with reopening a Kathmandu-Banepa road, blocked when explosives were placed nearby, interrupted their assignment in order to arrest the protesters. Suspected Maoists are believed to have placed the explosives to disrupt public transport between Kavre and Kathmandu.

The protests were organized by the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) in Kavre. The FNJ are in the middle of a 17 day protest to demand the restoration of press freedom and to urge the government of King Gyanendra to abandon its plans to codify emergency press restrictions by amending the media law.

Also on 13 June, four dozen demonstrators in Kathmandu were arrested, with the police using force on a number of occasions. According to Nepalnews.com, over 200 people were protesting at a peaceful rally taking place at Ratna Park, near a government restricted area in the capital, when police officers arrived. Some journalists were reportedly manhandled by the officers. Police had four hired mini-buses and a number of vans on standby to transport the arrested journalists to police stations throughout the city.

Following the example of other journalists who had been detained since the FNJ’s protest programme began, the demonstrators arrested in Kathmandu boycotted the meals served in detention to denounce their suppression. The journalists were released on 14 June.

Police brutality was also reported at two separate demonstrations earlier in the week. On 9 June, six journalists were injured when police used batons to disrupt protestors in the town of Butwal in western Nepal.

Also on 9 June, FNJ Bara District Secretary Guru Prasad Gautam was seriously hurt when a policeman, intervening in a protest in the Bara city of Kalaiya, repeatedly used his rifle butt to hit Gautam in the stomach. Gautam required immediate medical attention and remained in hospital for several days following the attack. At least eight other journalists were also injured.

Referring to the ongoing mass arrests of the Nepalese journalists, IPI Director Johann P. Fritz said that “King Gyanendra’s insistence on denying media rights has now escalated into violent attacks against journalists and heightened retaliation against those who continue to fight for freedom of the press.”

“I call on the King to release any journalists who remain in custody and to urge security forces to cease their campaign of aggression against citizens who are justifiably exercising their right to free association.”