BELGIUM, Dec 12: Activists of Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) protested against Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba, who visited Leuven on Wednesday to participate in the program of Nepali Janasamparka Samiti, Belgium.
According to Ramesh Kandel, the deputy coordinator of the Belgium National Coordination Council (NCC) of the Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA), a protest was held at the event venue after Minister Deuba refused to meet the RSP team who had reached to submit a memorandum to her. Kandel said that the RSP activists protested at the venue to express their opposition after the minister did not accept the memorandum they wanted to deliver.
While Minister Deuba was participating in the event, protesters staged demonstrations outside the event venue holding placards such as ‘Unite against corruption’, ‘Ensure justice to cooperative victims,’ ‘Investigate the Giribandhu, Bhutanese Refugee, Teramex, and Widebody scandals’ and others.
RSP activists stage demonstration as Lamichhane reaches Pokhara
“We came here to submit a memorandum, but the program was secretly held on the upper floor of a restaurant,” RSP cadre Madhav Sapkota said, “Our concerns were not heard, so we were compelled to protest.”
It is mentioned in the memorandum issued by Krishna Dahal and Dr Gokarna Pandey, the secretary of the Pravasi Nepali Coordination Committee (PNCC), Belgium, that they strongly object to the Nepal government’s arrest of RSP chairman Rabi Lamichhane. They have condemned the recent events, portraying them as an act of a political vendetta, expressing their strong disapproval of the actions.
In the memorandum, the officials of the platform have stated that the parliamentary investigation committee has already confirmed that there is no connection between Lamichhane and the cooperative scam case, and thus, the government’s decision to arrest him is wrong and unjust. The memorandum speculated that the arrest is a conspiracy to divert attention from other controversial scams such as ‘Giribandhu,’ ‘Teramax,’ ‘Bhutani Refugees,’ and ‘Widebody’.
Similarly, the protestors expressed their strong objection to the incident of Lamichhane being taken from Chitwan to Pokhara overnight. It has been claimed that Lamichhane was taken to Pokhara from Chitwan in the middle of the night without prior information. The protestors have also strongly condemned the incident where Lamichhane’s personal diary disappeared while in custody.
The PNCC has appealed to the government for an impartial investigation, demanding that those responsible for the incident be brought to justice within the legal framework. At the end of the memorandum, it is mentioned that the NRNA called upon Nepalis across the country and abroad to unite and oppose corruption and political conspiracies.
