Nepal gets draconian act during festival season

Kathmandu Nepal:

At a time when Nepal is celebrating its biggest festival of Dashain, the government has reintroduced a draconian act in an even harsher form.

The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Control and Punishment) Act, introduced three years ago to control the Maoist insurgency, authorised the security forces to detain people, suspected of being terrorists, for 90 days without trial.

At the time of its introduction, the act had been criticised by human rights activists and opposition parties who feared it would give arbitrary power to the army and create even more "disappearances".

International rights organisations say Nepal, during the course of the eight-year-old Maoist insurgency, tops the list of countries where illegal arrests, torture in custody and disappearance from custody are rampant. Though the draconian legislation expired last week, the Sher Bahadur Deuba government decided to reintroduce it as an even harsher law.


Since Nepal's parliament was dissolved in 2002 and elections put in abeyance since then, the government cannot introduce a new act. However, it circumvents the hurdle by introducing new measures as ordinances.

The expired act was given a fresh lease of life as a new ordinance, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Control and Punishment) Ordinance.

The new ordinance empowers the army to hold any suspect in detention without a trial for one year.


The new ordinance comes even as the Supreme Court of Nepal rapped the government for not disclosing the whereabouts of people taken into custody while asking for a full disclosure.

The National Human Rights Commission, Nepal's apex rights body, sent a letter to Deuba Tuesday, expressing its dissatisfaction with the disclosures made by the government so far.

The commission says the government has made public the whereabouts of only a few when there are large numbers of people being held illegally in army barracks. The army refuses to let the commission inspect the barracks, despite pressure from international organizations.

The ordinance has been criticised by the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist, an ally of the ruling coalition.


An opposition party, the Nepali Congress of former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, has threatened to make the ordinance the focal point of its anti-government campaign after the festival season ends.

The Maoists, who are fighting to overthrow monarchy and introduce a Communist republic, have announced a nine-day ceasefire from Wednesday to allow people to celebrate Dashain.

Indo-Asian News Service
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