Nepal’s journalists and the private radio broadcaster, whose offices were searched by the police last week, today moved the Supreme Court against the government’s draconian media ordinance which bans news transmission by FM channels.Various professional organizations, including the FNJ and Nepal Bar association, filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court against the media ordinance challenging its constitutionality. “The ordinance, the major objective of which is to discourage media, is completely against the words and spirit of the Constitution,” the petition said. Private radio station Kantipur FM’s managing director Binod Raj Gyawali filed the writ petition at the apex court and sought a stay order to halt the government from implementing the press ordinance. Gyawali demanded that the press ordinance which prevents FM stations from broadcasting news be nullifiedA one-day national conference of FM radio broadcasters, held in south Nepal’s Chitwan town yesterday, directed all FM stations to defy the ‘‘black press ordinance’’, sources at the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) said.
