A Voice For the Voiceless

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The Advocacy Project seeks to produce social change by helping marginalized communities to become advocates for social justice and claim their rights

Katmandu Protests: 11/11/05

Nepalese NGOs Burn Code of Conduct in Protest
By the Collective Campaign for Peace

Katmandu, November 11, 2005-Hundreds of activist members of Nepalese NGOs gathered in New Baneshower to protest the recent enforcement of the Code of Conduct by the national government.

The Code of Conduct, issued on November 10 and made effective immediately, has been widely criticized by international human rights organizations and legal bodies for severely curtailing the activities of NGOs in Nepal and limiting their independence from strict government regulation.
 
While several leaders of Nepalese NGOs addressed the crowd during the demonstration, a copy of the Code of Conduct was set on fire by the protestors. Security personnel intervened and quickly extinguished the flames.

All of the speakers emphasized that the Code of Conduct was designed to control and intimidate civil society and that its imposition was unconstitutional. They also declared that Nepalese NGOs would launch a massive nationwide disobedience movement demanding that the Code of Conduct be rescinded.

Members of the NGO Federation of Nepal burning the Code of
Conduct at a protest in New Baneshwore
on Friday, November 11.

Speakers at the demonstration:

1. Dr. Arjun Karki, president of NGO Federation of Nepal,
2. Bishnu Nishthuri, president of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists,
3. Dr Om Gurung, general secretary of Nepal Federation of Nationalities and Indigenous Peoples
4. Sapana Malla, president of the Federation of Differently Abled People
5. Krishna Prasad Bhandari, president of National Human Rights Foundation
6. Binod Pokhrel, president of the Association of Differently Abled People
7. Gajadhar Sunar, general secretary of Dalit NGO Federation
8. Gauri Pradhan, rights activist.

-COCAP Human Rights Monitoring Team