Press Release: Unconditional release of secretary general and other arrestees

April, 24, 2019

We are aware of organized- aggressive activities being undertaken national wide against religious minorities, especially the Christian community for the last couple of months. We would like to draw the attention of the government that however pretends uninformed, on the arrest of the secretary general of the society Ps Dilliram Paudel along with other Christian believers from Doko hotel in Dang at 7 in the morning on 23 April. Other arrestees are Gaurav Shrivastava (Indian citizen), Leanna Cinquanta (American citizen), Kunsang Tamang (interpreter) and Pramod Kafle (driver). The arrest was made without any warrant with the personal effort of Superintendent of Dang Mr. Bel Bahadur Pandey, who is known to have a prejudiced attitude toward the Christian community.

We are deeply saddened by such extrajudicial imprisonment curtailing one’s religious belief which has created serious concerns on we Christian minority in the country and calls upon concerned stakeholders, individual and civil society organizations on the following:

Ps Dilliram and the team were to participate in the religious activities at the invitation of the local Christian leaders. The bible, equipment and other belongings of the team members were falsely interpreted as proof of preaching by the security force, therefore, SP Pandey and his squad should be subjected to a departmental action and arrestees should be free unconditional.

The act of criminalizing general religious and cultural activities of the Nepali Christian by the Nepal legislation, mass media and the government administrative should be stopped immediately. Therefore, to uphold the image of the country, respect its international commitments by ensuring freedom to adopt, observance, practice and practice a religion or belief of ones with the following amendment in the constitution and criminal acts:

Amend third clause article 26 of the constitution, in line with its first clause according to the right to follow, not to follow, convert, manifest and teach and practice the religion of choice in the spirit of Universal Declaration on Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Nepal Treaty Act (1990).
Remove clause 3 (Chha), sub-article 2 of the criminal code 2017 that criminalized the conversion.
Remove article 156 of the same article provides a potential risk of increasing acrimony and conflict between religious communities, which so far have been mutually coexisting for centuries.
Remove articles 157 and 158 of the same act for they are against word and spirit of the international human rights instruments that Nepal is a party to.
Remove article 159 for the provision made by this article on the status of limitation says a suit has to be filed within six months after the date of the cause of action which is not practical.

Let all the religious communities equally granted provision of the instrument to register to regulate their properties, religious activities with the full freedom.

Formulate and monitor the laws for those religious institutions that are registered under the association registration act (1977) ensuring easy access to conduct their religious activities without any obstacles.