Nepalese student leaders denounce King's power seizure
Student leaders today denounced King Gyanendra’s seizure of power, called for the restoration of democracy and urged their colleagues to join banned street protests despite a strict government crackdown.
“Our only goal is restoration of full democracy and we will battle to the end. This is the beginning of our decisive battle against the autocratic regime,” student leader Gagan Thapa said.
Hundreds of activists from 10 student groups were expected to hit the streets in Nepal’s capital Katmandu and other cities later today, he said.
Thapa is one of the government’s most wanted pro-democracy activists and has been in hiding since February 1, when Gyanendra assumed absolute power, imposed emergency rule and put top politicians in jail. Police have been hunting down student activists, jailing them and harassing their families, Thapa said.
“So far our protests have been minor participated by only our officials but we are going to have mass rallies bringing in ordinary student members,” Thapa said.
Thousands of students joined anti-government rallies last year.
Gyanendra, a constitutional monarch, said he was forced to take power because of the former government’s failure to control an anti-monarchy communist insurgency, or halt corruption among politicians.
The Maoist rebels have been fighting since 1996 to establish communist rule, and have pledged in recent days to intensify their attacks against security forces.
Since the king’s takeover, the royal government has strictly censored the media and sought to justify strict crackdowns on rallies by citing intelligence that they were being infiltrated by the communist rebels.
Today, Nepalese police questioned the editor of the nation’s leading daily newspaper for about an hour, grilling him over a report on March 14 anti-monarchy protests.
Narayan Wagle, editor of Kantipur, was summoned to police offices and questioned in the presence of his attorney on the report about police arresting hundreds of demonstrators protesting against the king’s power grab.
