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.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS