Protestors demonstrated for the Prime Minister of Nepal who was removed from office following the King’s constitutional coup nearly half a year ago. When to police rushed in to break it up with batons, the protestors fought back with bricks. Not what I’d call a healthy situation.
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) – Police used batons to break up a protest by supporters of this Himalayan country’s detained former prime minister on Sunday, leaving about 15 demonstrators and 10 police injured.
About 400 supporters of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba were rallying outside the Royal Commission for Corruption Control, waving flags and chanting slogans against the king, who seized absolute power in February and fired Deuba.
The skirmishes began when police moved in to clear the protesters because they were blocking the street.
They used batons to beat the protesters, injuring about 15 of them. Many more had cuts and minor bruises.
Protesters retaliated by pelting police with bricks, injuring at least 10 police officers, said a policeman at the scene who declined to be named.
ééRelease our leader,” the protesters chanted before police broke the protest.
Deuba is being tried by the commission on charges that his administration embezzled $5.3 million from a road construction project.
Nepal’s King Gyanendra fired Deuba and his government on Feb. 1 as he seized power. The monarch said the move was necessary to quell a nine-year communist insurgency and stamp out corruption.
There’s only one problem with the King’s reason for suspending civil liberties in the country: he hasn’t made any progress on the fight against the Maoists. Perhaps it would be more believable if he were actually containing the insurgency and gradually returning to the citizens their rights. I understand the necessity of preventing the Maoists from forcing themselves into power; communists don’t have a very good track record on human rights. But if the King is going to allege extraordinary circumstances, then he needs to take those circumstances on. Since that’s not happening, it only calls into question his intentions, which I don’t believe to be particularly righteous.