An unidentified gang on November 16, 2010 night attacked Shreedeep Rayamajhi, a journalist associated with civil journalism sites at Kankeshwori near Bishnumati River in capital Kathmandu. The incident occurred while he was riding his motorcycle home from work.
Raymajhi has been voluntary reporting on travel and current events, including politics and crime, for "CNN iReport", global news website "GroundReport", and other online outlets as well.
The assault left him with a fractured shoulder and sprained ankle. In the following days, Rayamajhi received more e-mails warning him that he was "still on our hit list."
According to him he had been receiving threat from an unknown group since June 2010 warning him to stop writing and to erase his profile from online news outlets.
"We condemn such threat and attack on journalists," said Freedom Forum Chairperson Taranath Dahal, "State has to come up with the tangible program to safeguard media sector including online journalists." Dahal further added that government should act promptly to bring the guilty to book at the earliest.
"We are very much outraged over the government's inefficiency to bring the guilty to book so as to end the culture of impunity and safeguarding media sector," asserted Dahal. "We demand an urgent investigation into the incident and provide enough security to the journalists Rayamajhi unless the guilty will be punished."
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np
01-4102030/ 4102022