Police armed with tear gas, bamboo batons and orders to use force if necessary were depoyed across Nepal's capital yesterday to block plans by the political opposition to protest King Gyanendra's power grab last month.
The constitutional monarch dismissed the government on Feb. 1, imposing emergency rule and suspending civil liberties.
Dozens of opposition politicians and other critics of the monarch have been arrested, including several journalists. Police on Monday night arrested prominent reporter Kanakmani Dixit, publisher of Himal magazine, but released him several hours later, according to an editor at the magazine. Authorities gave no reason for his detention.
Since the takeover, many politicians have gone underground and police have thwarted efforts by Nepal's five major political parties to hold big rallies.
A few demonstrators have taken to the streets, only to be quickly detained by police.
But Nepal's political parties said yesterday's anti-king rally in Katmandu would be much bigger than previous ones and vowed that demonstrators would not be deterred by the heavy security presence.
``We have urged all our supporters to fight a decisive movement to restore democracy in Nepal,'' said Meena Pandey, a leader of the Nepali Congress, the largest party.
Keshav Badal, a senior member of the Communist Party of Nepal, said party leaders would take part in the rally.
"We expect a much bigger response," he said.
But a government minister said the protest would not be permitted.
"Under emergency rule such protests are banned. We will do what needs to be done," Education Minister Radha Krishna Mainali said.
Senior police officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had orders to break up any protest, even by using force if necessary. They said protesters would be arrested if they defy orders.
Meanwhile the king, who is also the supreme commander of the Royal Nepalese Army, made an appearance at the military parade grounds in the heart of Katmandu for an annual Hindu celebration.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
TRUDEAU IN TROUBLE: US president-elect Donald Trump reacted to Chrystia Freeland’s departure, saying: ‘Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power. Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election. “It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but
RSS