Nepal: End Cycle of Impunity and Deliver Justice to Victims

The Maoists claimed they took up arms because of the denial of justice, said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. Now that they are in government, we hope they will show the courage to bring perpetrators to justice.  
 
The 118-page report, Waiting for Justice: Unpunished Crimes from Nepals Armed Conflict, documents in detail 62 cases of killings, disappearances, and torture between 2002 and 2006, mostly perpetrated by security forces but including a couple of cases involving Maoists. The families of those killed and disappeared have filed detailed complaints with police seeking criminal investigations but the Nepali justice system has failed miserably to respond to these complaints.  
 
People took to the streets in 2006 demanding a new Nepal built on justice, human rights, and rule of law, said Mandira Sharma, executive director of Advocacy Forum. Its time for the new government to honour that call.  
 
To date, not a single perpetrator has been brought to justice before a civilian court. Fearing both the army and Maoists, at times police refuse to register complaints altogether, saying they will be dealt with by a proposed transitional justice body.  
 
For instance, almost four years after eyewitnesses saw army personnel seize and shoot Madhuram Gautam dead in Morang District on December 18, 2004, police are still refusing to file a criminal complaint into his death. This is despite interventions by lawyers, representatives of the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights-Nepal, and even an order from the Biratnagar Appellate Court requiring police and the chief district office to register the complaint. But when Madhurams family and Advocacy Forum visited Morang police on September 1, 2008, to file the complaint, the superintendent of police still refused to register it.  

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