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While the Bush administration said it was trying to get all available information before making any comment, Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists were quick to condemn the Nepalese government's crackdown on the media and the arrest of the editor, publisher and managing director of two prominent daily newspapers on charges of treason.
Both papers had showcased front-page articles rubbishing the official version of the massacre of the Nepalese royal family and called for a thorough probe.
Amnesty said the journalists "have been arrested solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression" and declared that it "considers them prisoners of conscience and is calling for their immediate and unconditional release".
Editor Yubraj Ghimire, publisher Hemraj Gyawali and managing director Kailash Sirohiya of Kantipur, a Nepalese language newspaper, and The Kathmandu Post, an English daily, were arrested around 3pm on June 6.
The two publications had carried an article titled 'New Massacre Should Not Be Endorsed' by Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai.
The reference was to the Kot massacre of 1841 that had helped the Ranas to snatch absolute power from the Shah dynasty. The monarchy was restored, with India's help, by late King Birendra's grandfather Tribhuvan in 1951.
Amnesty said the Maoist party's call for the Nepalese people to reject the current royal establishment as a "puppet of Indian expansionist forces" may be "a move to cash in on the current crisis".
CPJ also called for the immediate and unconditional release of the journalists and its executive director, Ann Cooper, called the arrests "both outrageous and shortsighted".
"By arresting three of the country's leading journalists," she said, "the government is stifling the free flow of information in Nepal, a policy that will only exacerbate the current social tensions. The charges should be dropped."
Death of a Monarch: The Complete Coverage
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