BHASWOR OJHA

"Don't you dare ride around laughing in a car, if you write against us we'll come and fix you," is what Maoist demonstrators on the streets told a Kantipur reporting team during the strike. Two days later, party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal let off another broadside against the media for having covered the anti-Maoist resistance in Kathmandu and having treated rural Nepalis with 'disrespect'. He warned journalists and intellectuals that his party was 'keeping tabs' on what everyone wrote, which effectively amounted to giving his cadre the green light to attack critics. There have been numerous instances of the Maoists attacking the media, and even killing them savagely.

Such threats coming from a party that is making a democratic transition is not just extremely objectionable but also regrettable. A day after their chairman's threats, Maoist cadre started physically attacking reporters. Such behaviour has once more demonstrated the Maoists' totalitarian ways after they couldn't get what they wanted. During the war and after the ceasefire, the Maoists have targeted media that has been critical of them. After attacks and murders of journalists, the Maoist way is to first deny it and when overwhelming evidence is produced, to say sorry and then to reiterate the party's commitment not to infringe on press freedom. This has happened repeatedly.

If there is any political bias in the mainstream Nepali media it is for multiparty democracy and freedom, human rights and social reform, and journalists have always risen up in the past when these values were under attack from dictatorships. The Maoists need to remind themselves that the Nepali media will never bow to threats and intimidation. The Maoists have undermined their own stature and respect by projecting themselves against democracy and freedom through their anti-press activities. In a democracy, political forces need to be able to take criticism and respond without violence. If the Maoists change their behaviour the people will believe in them more.