freedom1 Forum has been concerned over the arrest of journalists, Sushil Pant and Santosh Bhattarai, from the capital city, Kathmandu, on June 20, 2013.
Police arrested guest editor to an online daily www.nepaliheadlines.com, Sushil Pant, and its owner Santosh Bhattarai, reasoning a news story about a women’s college the online published nearly a month back.
Editor at the online, Amit Adhikari, said to the freedom1 Forum’s Media Monitoring Desk, “Mr Pant and Bhattarai were arrested, saying ‘there was something to inquire about a news story’.”
Sudden arrest of journalists merely because of news writing is against the freedom1 of expression. And, it is not the police person to handle the content issues if anything was wrong.
It is the highhandedness of the police to arrest journalists because we have already a separate agency, Press Council Nepal, a regulatory body to monitor the media content.
Therefore, freedom1 Forum demands immediate release of journalists, and urges the Press Council Nepal to look into the matter considering the seriousness and sensitivity of the news.