At about 9 pm (local time), a team of police officers and government employees unplugged Radio Sagarmatha as it was about to air the BBC News. Scheduled was an interview with Maoist chief Prachanda but the station had already decided not to run the item and risk government retaliation, a director told IPS on Monday.

In October, officials of King Gyanendra's government raided another station, Kantipur FM, seizing equipment used for broadcasting to eastern Nepal. Weeks later, the council of ministers passed an ordinance that drastically tightens existing media laws and bans news on FM radio.

Since then, "it's 'do or die', so some of us radio activists had decided to broadcast 'soft' news," Radio Sagarmatha director Bhupendra Basnet said at the station, Monday morning. At the gate, dozens of people milled around, some with video cameras and tape recorders, waiting for the next move.

Inside, officers from the United Nations human rights office spoke with the station manager, while a group of station employees and supporters had already left to petition the Supreme Court to reverse the previous night's actions.

"We expect to (succeed and to) resume our broadcasts from today," added Basnet, the general secretary of the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ), which operates Radio Sagarmatha, the first community radio station in South Asia when it went on-air a decade ago.

Five station employees arrested during Sunday night's shutdown were reportedly released by Monday afternoon.

Since the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal against the media ordinance earlier this month, Radio Sagarmatha has been producing events-based reports as news and leaving "hard" news for the daily BBC broadcasts, explained Basnet. BBC news airs in Nepali on a number of FM stations but is blocked hourly from the English service and replaced by classical music.

However, on Sunday, authorities stopped all BBC radio broadcasts and also blocked the BBC news website. The latter returned online early Monday afternoon.

Sunday's raid occurred as Nepalis in the capital Kathmandu are preoccupied with an agreement between the Maoists and Nepal's political parties released last week, which was the subject of Sunday's BBC interview with Prachanda.

In the pact, the rebels agree to drop their deadly, decade-long uprising and cooperate to establish a constituent assembly that would draft a new constitution, the first step toward Nepalis choosing a new government.

Nepal's young, multi-party system was wounded in October 2002 when King Gyanendra dismissed the government. In February, its condition became critical when the monarch fired his handpicked government and took direct power, imposing a state of emergency.

The emergency ended less than three months later but since then, the king's council has enacted numerous laws to tighten government control of the institutions that have emerged since 1990s people's revolution-- particularly the media.

King Gyanendra returns to Nepal on Dec. 2, after three weeks abroad and all of Nepal, including Prachanda, is awaiting his reaction to what has become known as the 12-point agreement. "Let's see what response comes from them (palace and the king)," the rebel leader told the BBC.

The government previously threatened to brand the parties "terrorists" if they cooperate with the Maoists, who say they are fighting to replace the "feudal" monarchy with a political system that would treat "disadvantaged" groups-- particularly indigenous people and Dalits (so-called untouchables) -- fairly.

Also on edge are officials at Kantipur FM, who await the Supreme Court's ruling on the issue of whether they can 'uplink' their broadcasts to eastern Nepal-- the official reason given by the government for seizing the station's equipment.

"It's amazing: they came and told us after five years that we couldn't operate," senior executive producer Prabhat Rimal told IPS, on Monday. Many people here believe the station was targeted because the Kantipur media group, which includes a TV station and newspapers in English and Nepali, has been extremely critical of the king's takeover.

"The government's intention is very clear...all they want to do is shut down or harass the media, independent radios," added Rimal. "It has been very successful...they've been watching the stations very carefully...and some have spoken out in favour of the ordinance."

FM radio is an essential information source in this still largely rural country of 25 million people, wedged between India and China. That is what makes the ban on FM news the most dangerous of the media ordinance provisions, the president of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) told IPS, earlier this month.

"It means that illiterate and semi-literate people will be completely cut off from the mainstream," added Bishnu Nisthuri. "This was a tactic of earlier autocratic regimes: if there are only a few conscious people, the population can be easily controlled."

Rimal told IPS that despite its previous decision favouring the media ordinance, he still believes the judiciary can deliver a fair decision in the Kantipur case.

"During the first hearing, we had an answer for every question the government asked, so we were expecting a stay order but we didn't get it. Since we believe in democracy, we should be positive. The Supreme Court is the only institution left that can give us justice."

Source: IPS - Inter Press Service News Agency