NEPAL: Hundreds of people rounded up and arbitrarily detained in Nepal

Dear friends

 

The Asian Human Rights Commission is gravely concerned by the large number of innocent civilians being rounded up by the Government of Nepal. There are no records of their arrest, detention or release. According to a press release issued by the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal, a team of the Commission comprising of Dr. Gauri Shanker Lal Das and Sushil Pyakurel visited the food go-down at Thapathali, Mahendra Police Club and Dasharath Stadium, at Tripureshower on 10 April 2004, where demonstrators of the political parties are being detained. The team met with both detainees and security officials.

 

The visiting team found that the minimum legal procedures to detain a person are not observed. For instance, in the food go-down approximately one thousand persons were detained in without basic needs such as bedding, drinking water and toilet facilities. The team also noted that the space where the detainees are kept is used for the storage of animals such as goats and sheep. None of the detainees are given detention letters and their records of detention are not maintained by anyone. Among the detainees some are students in the middle of their exams.

 

Several other human rights organizations in Nepal have conducted their own investigations of the detainees and detention places. They are also concerned of the severe assaults on some of the demonstrators. In recent years there have been documented cases of about 1000 disappearances, while human rights groups estimate the number to be much higher. There is a fear that some of the current detainees whose whereabouts are unknown may suffer a similar fate. Your urgent action is required to pressure the Government of Nepal to release all detainees immediately, and stop this illegal and arbitrary practice.

 

Thank you

Urgent Appeals Desk

Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)

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DETAILED INFORMATION:

 

Further to the information by the National Human Rights Commission, AHRC has also received the following details from other human rights groups.

 

No records of arrest/detention

There has been no verification of the numbers, names, affiliations, addresses, occupations of the numerous arrested. Some of those arrested include bystanders, even small children, who happened to be standing around when the general rounding up was taking place. The detainees are being released in batches. Again, there is no public information of when an individual was arrested, where they were kept, what was the charge against them, and when they were released, where they are being released and so on.

 

Separation of detainees

In the last five days, there are verified reports that the detainees are being carefully separated. Most of those arrested are being kept in other locales; the political leadership and active cadre of the five agitating parties however, are receiving special treatment in that they are confined in the Armed Police Force HQ in Halchowk. There is another special category, the cream, consisting of the leadership of the Jan Morcha [People’s Front, which includes the CPN (Mashal) and CPN (Unity Centre)], which are left of the main parliamentary left party, the CPN (UML).

 

Conditions of detention centers

The above mentioned centers of detention have not been built to cater to residents. There are no toilets in some of them, for the rest, the facility is inadequate to cope with the numbers, no provision of clean drinking water, no food, no change of clothes, no beds or facilities for sleeping, no medical facilities. Many detainees fell ill after undergoing detention under such inhuman conditions and had to be admitted to hospital. Where food was given, it was often only after some agitation by the detainees.

 

Mode of transportation

The commandeering of private trucks, without the drivers being paid, or fed, for use against the public, calls for comment. While neither private nor public services were being garnered for the use of the public, both public and private services were being used against the public (water cannons at the demonstration site, no drinking water, no ambulances, or mobile toilets). Second, the detainees were being dropped from their visit to the detention centers in arbitrary ways. Some were dropped home. Others were dropped in the middle of Baneshwor Chowk at midnight and left to find their own way home. None of the arrested were dropped back from where they were picked up. 

 

Illegal detention

Random arrests are taking place. There are no records of the arrest and detention, as mentioned above. Those who are under custody have not been informed of the reason of their arrest and detention. The security authorities cannot keep a person in detention for more than 24 hours according to article 14 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal. But large (as yet indeterminate) numbers have been kept for over five days already. Under the Constitution, if they have to be detained for longer than 24 hours, they have to be produced before the competent judicial authority for the detention to be legal. 

 

These are only a few of the people who have been arrested, all from the Jan Morcha:

 

1. Lilamani Pokharel, arrested on 9 April 2004
2. Hari Acharya, arrested on 9 April 2004
3. Pari Thapa, arrested on 10 April 2004
4. Himlal Puri, arrested on 10 April 2004
5. Rashmi Nepali, arrested on 10 April 2004
6. Chandra Bahadur KC, arrested on 10 April 2004
7. Ram Kumar Poudel, arrested on 13 April 2004
8. Shiva Poudel, arrested on 13 April 2004
9. Dadhi Ram Acharya, arrested on 13 April 2004.

 

All the nine above have not been allowed to meet or contact any family member or a lawyer. There is a possibility of their torture, disappearance, and other grave human rights violations.

 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

 

The five-party led andolan or campaign against ‘regression’ is in its 13th day. On the 9th day of the movement, the government declared the inside of the Ring Road in Kathmandu and Lalitpur as ‘riot-prone areas’ and banned any assembly of more than five persons. Violation of these orders would lead to summary arrests, without warrants. This order itself is a violation of the fundamental rights of assembly and movement as guaranteed by the Constitution, and publicly committed to by the government in its recent 25-point charter.

 

The order has been justified however, by the government on the basis of its ‘information’, that some of the agitators have links with the CPN (Maoist), a party that has been deemed to be a ‘terrorist’ organization. Protestors and agitators have defied the order ever since it was imposed, and to date, several thousands have been rounded up in police trucks, some of them commandeered from private sources, and taken to various destinations in Kathmandu (none of which are jails). These destinations include Dashratha Sports Stadium, Rangasala, Nepal Food Corporation Godown, Birendra Police Club, other police stations around the valley, and lately the HQ of the Armed Police Force, Halchowk.

 

 

SUGGESTED ACTION

Please write a letter expressing your grave concern at the arbitrary arrest and detention of innocent civilians.

 

SEND YOUR LETTER TO:

His Majesty King Gyanendra

 

Narayanhity Royal Palace

Durbar Marg

Kathmandu,

Nepal

Tel : 977-1-413577 ; 227577

Fax : 977-1-227395 ; 411955

 

SEND COPIES TO:

 

1.General Pyar Jung Thapa
Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Army
Headquarters, Kathmandu,
NEPAL
Fax: + 977 1 4 242 168

 

2.Shyam Bhakta Thapa
Inspector General of Police
Police Headquarters,
Naxal, Kathmandu,
NEPAL
Fax: + 977 1 4 415 593 / 415 594

3.H. E. Gyan Chandra Acharya
Ambassador
Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Nepal
81 rue de la Servette,
1201 Geneva,
SWITZERLAND
Fax: +4122 7332722
E-mail: mission.nepal@ties.itu.int

 

4.Mr. Nain Bahadur Khatri
Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission
Pulchowck, Lalitpur
Nepal
Tel: +977 1 5 547 974 or 525 659 or 547 975
Fax: +9771 5 547 973
Email: nhrc@ntc.net.np

 

5.Mr. Theo C. van Boven
Special Rapporteur on the Question of Torture
OHCHR-UNOG
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10
SWITZERLAND
Fax: +41 22 917 9016

 

6.Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

Room 3052

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner

For Human Rights,

Palais Wilson, Rue de Paquis 52

Geneva

Switzerland
Tel: 41 22 9179313
Fax: 41 22 9179006

 

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