Police kept tight security in place in Nepal's capital yesterday, as political parties vowed more protests against King Gyanendra's rule despite hundreds of arrests in recent days.
An alliance of seven parties has called for a nationwide strike on Thursday.
On Saturday police arrested more than 230 people after anti-royal demonstrators in Kathmandu clashed with officers who used tear gas and carried firearms in place of their usual bamboo batons.
PHOTO: AP
"Most of the people detained during Saturday's clashes were released late on Saturday night, and 61 remained in custody," said a police officer on condition of anonymity.
Around 150 political and human rights activists who were rounded up on Thursday and Friday remained in detention, the police officer added.
Opposition politicians vowed to keep up the protest program, calling a nationwide general strike for Thursday and planning district-level protests in an attempt to disrupt planned municipal elections.
"The people's movement has come to a new height and will not come to an end unless full democracy is restored," Shobhakar Parajuli, secretary of the Nepali Congress Party, said.
Another opposition leader condemned the government's use of force.
"The effects of the protests are getting very strong because the government is indulging in unnecessary actions by using excessive force," said K.P. Oli, a senior leader of the Nepal Communist Party (United Marxist Leninist).
"The government is suppressing people and we don't have any alternative but to continue protests," said Oli, who is under house arrest.
The parties have called for a boycott of local elections planned for Feb. 8 by Gyanendra, who is under increased international pressure to restore democracy after he sacked the elected government almost a year ago.
On Saturday groups of stone-throwing protesters clashed with police in running battles around Kathmandu's main square after a larger pro-democracy rally was banned.
Police arrested 236 people, an officer said later. Journalists and other eyewitnesses reported that some 300 demonstrators were rounded up and bundled into police vans.
Meanwhile, Maoist rebels and government forces clashed overnight in a village in southern Nepal, killing 14 militants and six security forces, the royal army said yesterday.
The gunbattle began on Saturday night after the insurgents attacked a security patrol in Phapar Badi village, 160km south of Kathmandu, an official at the Royal Nepalese Army headquarters said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS