The central office of the Federation of Journalists is locked

Kathmandu. Samajwadi Press Organization Nepal, an organization of journalists close to CPN (Unified Samajwadi) led by Madhav Nepal, has locked the central office of Federation of Nepalese Journalists.

Alleging that the Federation of Nepalese Journalists has published the final membership list of journalists including non-journalists, it has locked the  main gate of the Federation’s central office at Sanchargram on Monday, demanding its cancellation.

The president of the organization Bishwamani Sudevi said that contrary to the agreement on June 8th, the membership list was brought in guerrilla style by including non-journalists in order to influence the next election of the federation on June 26th, demanding its cancellation. He also warned that until the membership is justified, they will carry out such activities as will cause disruption in the work of the upcoming elections of the Federation.

Chairman Subedi said, “The work of giving membership to non-papermen, keeping them in the membership list has been done.” And we objected to that. According to the legal provisions and legal practice of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists, both the origination and termination of membership are vested with the district branch. The state and center will only monitor. The members recommended by the district branches have been removed directly from the center. It has been removed from the province. District branches should be refined, so the names have been kept from center and state.

Names kept like that, those people are not journalists The number of non-journalists has been kept higher. We said cleansing. Instead of purging, let’s make the Federation of Journalists only for journalists. But now the names of non-journalists have been added overnight and another list has been brought up. It has been signed by the President and the Secretary General. The stamp of the Federation has been placed. And we received it last night as it was prepared to be submitted to the Election Committee. In that membership list, different names were written than the list prepared on the 8th. After we saw the names of people who are outside the journalism profession and doing other professions and businesses, we have appeared at this central office to lock the Nepal Journalists Federation with the demand that if what we told the Federation of Journalists is not done, then we should cancel that list.

It is not only our agreement that the elections of all three levels of the Federation should be held on 26th of May, but there is also a pressing demand. The election should be held on that date. But our demand is that the membership list should be fair. While we are saying that we should bring the membership list in a fair manner, we are being attacked. Friends associated with Samajwadi Press Organization who were included in the previous list, the names of those friends have also been removed now. And, especially in the interests of 2 organizations, this work has been done overnight in the name of strengthening those organizations.

This has been done in guerilla style. Nepal Journalist Federation cannot work in this guerilla style, all work must be transparent There is a demand that membership should be transparent. Some names had to be added to the agreement reached on the 8th. Instead of doing that, we have objection to the list prepared by removing the names and keeping the non-journalist. It should be dismissed. We are in favor of blocking all the processes until the days when it is canceled and the membership list is brought in a fair manner. That is why we have come to lock the central office of the federation.

The Samajwadi Press Organization has been objecting that the federation has removed the names of journalists belonging to its organization from the membership list of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists