KATHMANDU, MARCH 9
Federation of Nepali journalists issued a press release condemning some social activists’ call for public boycott of rights activist Bandana Rana and senior journalist Babita Basnet for their recent comments and views.
Recently, Rana had made some comments about rape accused Paul Shah and the alleged rape victim. Basnet had written an article demanding discussion on rape laws.
The FNJ said in democracy, individuals were free to express their views and it was wrong to call for public boycott of Rana and Basnet for expressing their views.
Terming the activists’ campaign against Rana and Basnet wrong, the journalists’ umbrella body urged all to seek solution to resolve the current controversy through dialogue.
Recently, a group of people issued a statement calling for public boycott of Rana and Basnet. The group accused Rana of violating the alleged victim’s privacy rights by sharing her photo on social networking site.
The group said Basnet’s advocacy for lowering consent age on account of honey-trapping cases was downright dangerous.
Senior journalist Basnet told THT that she had written an article just to start a debate on the age of consent and her arguments had nothing to do with Paul Shah’s case. She said she was being harassed and brutally trolled for exercising her freedom of expression.
“If society thinks that teenagers below 18 years of age do not engage in physical relations, then that is wrong,” Basnet said, adding that many teenagers between 14 and 18 years of age who were aware of age of consent provisions of the current law, were in jail. “The purpose of my article is to ensure that innocent people should not be punished just because they are unaware of age of consent provision,” Basnet said.
A version of this article appears in the print on March 10, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.