There is an urgent need for the restoration of fundamental freedoms suspended under the state of emergency in Nepal, writes Colm Ó Cuanacháin.
King Gyanendra of Nepal announced an official end on April 30th to the state of emergency that he had declared on February 1st. The state of emergency was implemented against a backdrop of civil war between the government and the armed opposition, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
The government was sacked, and human rights were suspended, including freedoms of assembly, opinion, the press, travel, and much more.
I have just returned from Nepal, where I was part of the Amnesty International crisis response team, and I witnessed a horrific pattern of increasing human rights violations - from both sides.
In the past three months, more than 3,000 people have been unlawfully detained, including the former prime minister, political activists, journalists, student leaders and human-rights defenders. Nepal now has the second highest rate of "disappearances" in the world. Independent news reporting has been censored or stopped.
All power now rests with King Gyanendra. Having suspended parliament and many of the constitutional provisions of accountability, and with iron-fisted control of the integrated army and police forces, he is ruling by decree and centralising control within the palace.
He is refusing to allow human-rights activists, including members of Nepal's human rights commission, to do their work for justice and truth. He has barred public bodies from advertising with private media outlets and cut resources for the independent media.
Ironically, these provisions are detrimentally affecting peacemakers far more than the Maoists, and are driving radio listeners to the Maoist stations.
The Maoists, in turn, are conducting a reign of brutal terror across vast swathes of the country. Hostage-taking, torture, intimidation and protectionism are widespread. Private schools are bombed and forced to close, homes and lands are confiscated and opponents are violently killed.
Over 250 people a month are now dying in the conflict, up 75 per cent on the death rate before the state of emergency.
I visited the Rajhaina village camp for internally displaced people (IDPs), where 962 people from Dailekh district are living in squalid conditions, some of the more than 200,000 IDPs in Nepal now. People explained that they had been teachers, farmers and business people. When Maoists started looking for protection money, initially they refused. But they came under impossible pressure, and some were forced to give in and passed money to Maoists.
As soon as some paid money, albeit under duress, the community became a target of the security forces for supporting the Maoists. A picture was painted of this tit-for-tat descent into chaos where the people were experiencing human rights violations, including killings, torture, disappearances and intimidation from both sides and were forced to flee.
I spoke with one woman who had been chair of a local group working to oppose Maoist violence and intimidation. She explained the activities she was involved in and her resultant torture at the hands of Maoists. Her call, and that of the others I spoke with, was a request that we get the message of their plight out to the world and bring pressure on the government and the Maoists so that they might return home in peace.
While there I visited Krishna Pahadi, the founder of Amnesty International in Nepal, who has been detained for his conscientiously held beliefs and his human rights work, since the beginning of February.
Krishna is a man who rarely complains. Nevertheless, Amnesty International is increasingly concerned about his state of health. His physical and mental states are deteriorating and he is showing signs of anxiety and stress. Notwithstanding the fact that the meeting was recorded, with two officers present, he was outspoken and trenchant in his criticism of the current human rights violations in his country. He spoke openly about his concern that matters would continue to deteriorate.
Following intensive lobbying efforts, the Nepal government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on April 12th providing for deployment of an international human rights presence to Nepal.
The agreement calls for UN offices to be established in Kathmandu and, importantly, in regional centres, to help establish accountability for rights abuses and prevent further violations by both government forces and Maoist rebels.
The appointment of Ian Martin, an experienced UN human rights expert, to head up the office, has been welcomed. Now it is essential that the UN, and the governments that fund it, including Ireland, move quickly to get the office up and running immediately.
There is an urgent need for the restoration of fundamental freedoms suspended under the state of emergency, the release of all prisoners of conscience, effective human rights monitoring and protection, and for the government of Nepal to improve its human rights performance, including the ending of impunity for security forces personnel. The Maoists, equally, must abide by international humanitarian and human rights law.
Full details of our work in Nepal as part of the crisis response can be found on www.amnesty.ie
Colm Ó Cuanacháin is secretary general of Amnesty International's Irish Section