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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Hundreds held as Nepalis defy ban, press king |
| 2004-04-10 |
| Nepali police arrested hundreds of people on Friday, including political leaders, as thousands chanting anti-monarchy slogans defied a ban on rallies and took to the streets in protest against the king. "Riot police detained nearly 1,000 protesters and took them away... in trucks," Krishna Sitaula, a member of the biggest opposition party, Nepali Congress, told Reuters. "Down with absolute monarchy!" some demonstrators shouted before they were hauled away. Sitaula said former Congress prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala was injured as his supporters clashed with police to stop him being detained. About 30,000 people joined the protest, large by Nepali standards but well short of the 200,000 organisers had hoped for before Thursday night's sudden ban on public gatherings. The non-elected government, appointed by King Gyanendra, outlawed meetings of five or more people in the capital and surrounding areas, saying it had information Maoist revolutionaries planned to use the protests to incite violence. The move was an attempt to quash some of the largest anti-monarchy rallies in the Himalayan kingdom since mass protests ushered in democracy almost 15 years ago. Friday's rally marked the anniversary of the main 1990 protests that ended decades of absolute monarchy in Nepal. Nepal's five opposition parties, which held 194 of the 205 seats in the parliament Gyanendra dissolved in 2002, want the king to replace his loyalist cabinet with a multi-party administration and restore democracy with fresh elections. "We have defied the ban. The government has completely failed to implement its own order," said Amrit Bohara, a member of the Communist Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) party. UML chief Madhav Kumar Nepal, who heads the opposition alliance, was one of those arrested. Gyanendra, due to return to the capital on Friday from a tour of west Nepal to bolster popular support, has so far ignored the parties' demands and vocal international pressure for a new administration. Analysts say the political crisis is heading to a dangerous showdown as the country also battles the Maoist revolt that has killed more than 9,300 people since it erupted in 1996. "The king is fighting two uprisings simultaneously," said Kunda Dixit, editor of the widely read Nepali Times weekly. "How long can he afford to do that?" |
| Posted by:Steve White |