The media are slowly opening up and today’s newspapers confirmed it.
The leader of Nepal’s biggest political party GP Koirala has appealed for the protest, non-violent and peaceful, from Feb 18. And he has also admitted the mistake of political parties including his for the situation. That thing could be good for the future of the country.
I asked a leader of Nepali Congress’ sister-organization about reaction to the appeal and he told me that they had met today in secret place and decided to start peaceful protest from Feb 18 as appealed. They also agreed not to easily let security personnel capture them as used to be in recent past and continue staging protests at various levels. The student union is also talking to other seven student organizations for unity in the protest.
So for now, it looks like Feb 18, the democracy day, is going to be a big day but what form it will take is hard to tell.
Special note on this entry:Radio Free Nepal was a blog that ran during ex-King Gyanendra’s direct rule of Nepal defying the tight censorship and was instrumental in getting out information out of Nepal. The blog was at freenepal.blogspot.com which has now been closed.
The banner reads: King Gyandendra of Nepal has issued a ban on independent news broadcasts and has threatened to punish newspapers for reports that run counter to the official monarchist line. Given that any person in Nepal publishing reports critical of “the spirit of the royal proclamation” is subject to punishment and/or imprisonment, contributors to this blog will publish their reports from Nepal anonymously.
