16 Feb 2005

Radio Free Nepal

I usually focus solely on Singapore but the following is important. And if you run a blog can you pass it on please.

King Gyandendra of Nepal has issued a ban on independent news broadcasts and has threatened to punish newspapers for reports that run counter to the official monarchist line. Given that any person in Nepal publishing reports critical of "the spirit of the royal proclamation" is subject to punishment and/or imprisonment, contributors to this blog will publish their reports from Nepal anonymously.

Please help tell the world about what has happened in Nepal. Do not forget us. We want our democracy back! If you have questions or would like to help spread the word e-mail us. For media please send questions via e-mail and we will do our best to get good answers for you.


Link

9 comments:

dfgd said...

Has there ever been an ipen declaration in Singapore regarding the "Out of Bound" Markers?

dfgd said...

'open' not 'ipen', fat digit.

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot for helping us in spreading the words.

Agagooga said...

The OB markers are made deliberately fuzzy

Anonymous said...

Adding the label "free" to anything, and then declaring that this "freedom" has been taken seems to always cause a knee jerk reaction from those people who still think they are the defenders of global "freedoms". The closing down of a "free radio" station is only bad for those who use this medium to voice their propaganda, and does not necessarily suggest it is free in the sense that anyone can voice their feelings and thoughts.
If this "totalitarianism" works by reaching a peace deal - something the appointed government could not get anywhere with - then was this a bad thing.
The government failed to reach peace for the people, so if the King feels something must be done, then he does something for the sake of his country. If he fails, the people of Nepal will react and his reign will but cut short. If he succeeds then we will wonder what all the fuss was about and why we were drawn into something we obviously did not fully comprehend. We were drawn into this argument because those two magic words, "freedom" and "democracy" were "taken away", but we didn't understand what was really going on.

Anonymous said...

following on from the previous comment, try this story from BBC
Nepal launches graft probe panelIf this reduction in "freedom" actually heralds progress, something that a democratic governemt could not achieve, then maybe there is hope for the future of Nepal.

dfgd said...

And thankfully because of blogger we can read different interpretations of what is going on, and make up our own minds. We are not 'cultural dupes'.

Whether these 'actually heralds progress', is something only hindsight will reveal.

We hope it does, but only a media which is 'open' will help us to interpret it as such.

dfgd said...

blogger.com, run by google.com. Wonder if the PAP would like to take on the might of google.

dfgd said...

What I mean is, that you have access to google and blogger not because you are allowed to, but because the PAP can't do a damn thing about it.

If the government starts restricting access to such big sites like China tries to, there are still ways around it.

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Barracks/8845/singapore_internet_censorship.html