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Nepal opposition supporters arrested in protests Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Nepal's Opposition Says 700 Held After Emergency Rule Protests
March 15 (Bloomberg) -- Nepalese opposition parties said at least 700 supporters were arrested during protests in towns across the country over the Feb. 1 imposition of a state of emergency by King Gyanendra.
Protesters defied a ban on demonstrations yesterday and marched in towns including Janakpur in the south and Kakarbhitta in the east where police used baton charges to break up a rally, according to a report on the government's Web site. The government hasn't commented on the protests, the report said.
``The anti-king protests will continue until the king restores democracy in the country,'' Agence France-Presse cited Hira Bahadur Singh, a Nepal Communist Party lawmaker, as saying yesterday in the capital, Kathmandu. Singh was among a dozen people later detained in the city, AFP reported.
King Gyanendra said he imposed emergency rule to help combat an insurgency by rebels who have been fighting to replace the monarchy with a communist republic since 1996. The U.S., European Union and neighboring India have led calls for the release of political leaders and the restoration of civil liberties. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights may discuss events in Nepal at its meeting this week in Geneva.
The UN should appoint a special envoy to monitor human rights in Nepal, the Human Rights Watch group said before the Commission meeting began yesterday.
``The Commission should call on the government of Nepal to immediately restore all fundamental human rights, to ensure protection of human rights defenders, journalists and political activists and to release or charge all other political detainees,'' the New York-based group said on its Web site.
Nepalese Minister
Nepal has sent Foreign Minister Ramesh Nath Pandey to attend the Commission meeting.
Diwaker Pant, director of the Human Rights Promotion Center at the prime minister's office, is also attending, according to a separate report on the government Web site.
Nepal doesn't need a UN special envoy because it has its own human rights commission and the government is improving its work by doubling the body's budget, Pant said yesterday in Kathmandu, according to the report.
Pandey is meeting representatives of European governments and donor agencies during his visit to Switzerland to explain the state of emergency to nations and groups that provide aid to the Himalayan kingdom.
International donations fund 62 percent of Nepal's development budget. The imposition of emergency rule has deterred international donors from considering new programs, Nepalese Finance Minister Madhukar Shumsher Rana said on March 6 after he returned from a development aid conference in France.
Tourist Decline
The number of visitors arriving by air in Nepal last month fell 43 percent compared with February 2004, the Nepalese Tourism Board said last week, according to a report on the government Web site. The decline in the number of visitors from neighboring India last month was 52 percent and the number of non-Indian visitors fell 39 percent, the report said.
Nepal depends on tourists to support it economy. The country located between India and China is home to Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain, and eight other of the world's 14 peaks higher than 8,000 meters (26,248 feet).
Nepal is one of the poorest in the world with 42 percent of people living below the poverty line and 80 percent of them relying on agriculture for a livelihood.
Last Updated: March 14, 2005 19:14 EST
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