PRESS RELEASE
AHRC-PL-07-2005
ALRC-PL-01-2005

Nepal drowning in madness of barbarity with no rule of law

(Hong Kong, January 20, 2005) Nepal is drowning in a madness of barbarity without any rule of law and seeing its people killed, tortured, forcibly disappeared, displaced and live in constant fear, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and its sister organisation Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) say.

In a newly released report on Nepal's grave situation, which documents 1,003 missing persons and 40 cases of forced disappearance and torture in details, the two Hong Kong-based regional groups say law enforcement agencies, bureaucracy and courts there have failed to do their jobs.

Instead of providing protection to the people, all the state institutions responsible for the basic functioning of the country are conducive to the growth of terror and uncertainty among the population, they say.

While international attention and assistance is focused to help the victims of the recent tsunami disaster in the region, more concern should also be given to those who are helpless and suffering in landlocked Nepal's man-made tragedy.

"All extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture and other gross abuses in Nepal must be stopped at once," urges Basil Fernando, executive director of the AHRC.

"International organisations, particularly the United Nations, and powerful neighbours like India, must bring all their influence towards ending the extreme violence enveloping the country," Fernando says on the release of the report.

The 124-page special report, which is jointly published with the Kathmandu-based Advocacy Forum, shows the atrocities are inflicted on the people indiscriminately: the victims include children in their early teens, the elderly as old as 80 years, women and the handicapped.

"This is barbarism," Fernando says. "There is no legitimacy for the state to engage itself in casual killings and bloodshed as its enemy does. Even when fighting an insurgency the role of the state is to protect the rights and interests of its citizens."

In a vacuum of security and state institutions, people in Nepal are left alone helplessly to face the brutality, the AHRC executive director notes.

The information in the report is just the tip of the iceberg. The actual number of victims is yet to be known because the police and military forces often do not keep records of their arrests, apparently on purpose, the report notes. Many forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings are justified by the security forces as being the result of "encounters" with the insurgent Maoists.
 
In instances when victims try to approach the courts for habeas corpus, their cases are either rejected or kept pending without any action from the judiciary.

Even when the courts order their releases, the victims are very often re-arrested by the security forces immediately after they have been freed, according the report.

"The practice of law in Nepal today, as far as the people's basic rights are concerned, is clearly a futile exercise. The Royal Nepali Army and other security forces simply ignore the court instructions and authority," Fernando says.

For example, 40-year-old farmer Chail Bihari Loniya was re-arrested on a preventive detention order under the Public Security Act after he had been released on bail for "charges of causing a public offence". His family then filed a writ of habeas corpus before an appeals court and won the application. Yet he was taken away from prison by the police. A senior police officer reportedly said that "due process takes too long as we don't follow it".

The situation in Nepal has been simplified and seen as a result of the civil war between the state and the Maoists by many outsiders. But the cases documented show that the atrocities are bred by the single-mindedness of the state and the king to crush the rebels with the use of force, disregarding people's safety and ignoring their duty to protect the population, the AHRC and the ALRC say.

Draconian laws are being used to detain people in police custody, prisons or army barracks for extended periods. For example, under the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Control and Punishment) Ordinance, a suspect can be detained for up to a year without trial.

What is disturbing about these arrests, kidnapping, torture and killings is that they are carried out completely at random and often motivated by financial and personal greed - money and sex.

Many victims are broadly accused of "having links with the Maoists," a claim that allows the security forces to do whatever they like to a victim and escape any responsibility, the report says.

"Under the situation where there is no rule of law but absolute impunity for the perpetrators on both sides, there is no end to death and destruction," Fernando says.

The AHRC has also gathered about 250 signatures online in support of the call to stop disappearances in Nepal at its Web site <http://nepal.disappearances.org>.

The report, entitled "The Mathematics of Barbarity and Zero Rule of Law in Nepal", is published in the latest issue of Article 2, a bi-monthly of the ALRC, and can be obtained online at <http://www.article2.org>.

For more information, contact Basil Fernando at 2698-6065 or Ali Saleem at 2698-6031.
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About AHRC The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

About ALRC The Asian Legal Resource Centre, a sister organisation of the AHRC, holds general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.