HEALTH PROFESSIONALS AND MEDICAL STUDENTS ARE UNDER THREAT IN THE CURRENT SITUATION IN NEPAL

LETTER FROM A LEADER OF PHYSICANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY NEPAL

APRIL 13, 2006

Dear all,

We the people of Nepal here are having one of the worst situations in the history of our country. The people from every walks of life are on the streets demanding the change of the regime and restoration of peace and democracy. But the regime headed by the king has resorted to every possible means to demoralise and repress the people's voice. Yesterday only around 1000 people were wounded from different parts of Nepal half of which were firearm victims. The teaching hospital where I study only had around 120 injured.

There are the biggest ever peaceful demonstrations in all parts of the country. The doctors, engineers, journalists, workers, writers, artists, intellectuals, lawyers, professors and govt office bearers all have expressed their solidarity for the ongoing movement. None of the people's force is left to show their solidarity. However, the king with the help of army and the police and a handful of his yesmen has shown the most severe brutality an autocrat could show. While the country is on fire, he is spending his holidays in the beautiful city of Pokhra, 200 km west to the Capital.

The best part of this movement is that the armed rebels have morally supported it and have called for unilateral ceasefire to ease the peaceful protests in the capital. But, the govt hasn't responded to it but rather has tagged the people's program as that of the terrorists. What a shame!

At this critical time, the life of the doctors and of the health professionals is under threat. While defying curfew peacefully 7 doctors including 5 members of PSRN were arrested. Among the arrested are Dr Mahesh Maskey, Dr Sharad Onta, Dr Saroj Dhital, Dr Bharat Pradhan, Dr Bidur Osti (all PSR, Nepal members), Dr Sunder Mani Dixit, Dr Madhu Ghimire (the leaders of civil society movement). Amongst other arrested in the same program were Laxman Prasad Aryal, the ex-Justice supreme court, Damannath Dhungana, ex-Speaker of the house of representatives, Padma Ratna Tuladhar, ex-Minister of Health. They all are under at-least 3 month detention. Before this incident the President of PSRN was arrested and he is still in detention.

Just 4 days ago, 20 of medical students were arrested while they were in peaceful demonstration, following which around 30 armed police entered the teaching hospital hostel and beat indiscriminately around 20 students and a doctor and terrorised them in the night at 10pm. They were backed by the army. The next day, a few health professionals were threatened for treating the victims of the movement in a place around 500 were injured of which 150 were firearm victims. And, an American doctor Brian has been injured while he was operating mobile camps for the movement victims. This shows that the health professionals and the medical students are under threat in the current situation in Nepal.
I think IPPNW and other international human right organisations have to play an important role to help the imprisoned release safely and to pressure the govt to respect human rights and provide safety to the health professionals.

You could write petition to the govt and give pressure to the international community to bring peaceful solution to the present crisis.

Please help forward this email to as many addresses as possible.

What you can do:

Please contact the Nepalese embassy TODAY and demand the release of all physicians and leaders of PSR Nepal. Mention in particular our concern about the attacks on physicians and hospitals. When contacting the Nepalese embassy, refer to "physicians" and "leaders of PSR Nepal" rather than naming the individual physicians whose release we are demanding.