Kathmandu District Court has announced that imprisoning or arresting someone for commenting their views on social networking sites like Facebook & Twitter is against the rule of law and has also prohibited the police force to take any legal actions against someone just on the basis of Facebook comments.
On 2nd Shrawan, Abdul Rehman of Rajbiraj, was imprisoned for posting his opinion on Facebook. Kathmandu District Court has announced to bail Rehman stating that imprisoning someone for their opinion is against “right to freedom”. Kathmandu District Court’s Supreme Judge stated that such behavior is way beyond the limits and legal actions will be taken against the police officer who imprisoned Rehman.
On Jestha 27 night, Rehman had commented on a post which was published by Nagarik entitled “Saptarima Sudhrado Surakhcya (सप्तरीमा शान्ति सुरक्षा सुध्रँदो)“. He commented,”How is it improving? I have to pay NRs. 50000 for getting my stolen motor-bike.” The next day after posting that comment, on Jestha 28, the police force from Saptari arrested Rehman. After the arrest, the case was taken to Saptari District Court on Asar 2.
The police force brought the case with the demand of 5 year imprisonment and amount of NRs 5 lakh to be paid by Rehman. Later on, the case was taken to Kathmandu District Court on Asar 5. This case was brought by Dinesh Amatya, the Head Of Saptari Police Force, who imprisoned him for 28 days. The Court stated that they feel sorry for such action to be taken by their police force. They followed,”It is quite shocking to see such actions to be taken by police force. The job and responsibility of the police force is to protect and maintain the civil rights, but not to violate them. This was just not only illegal but blatantly irrelevant. This is against civil rights and there has been no law which has stated that legal actions can be taken just because somebody commented on social networking sites like: Twitter or Facebook.”
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