NHRC urges government, media houses to ensure rights of journalists to employment

Kathmandu - The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has urged the government and media houses to ensure rights of working journalists to employment and honour their labour by providing 'decent' remuneration to them in the context when they are working amid COVID-19 pandemic.

The Commission has today written to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to provide 'decent' remuneration to working journalists. "People's fundamental right to have the right information will be affected due to failure to create environment conducive for journalists to collect right information.

The Working Journalists Act also states that there will not be any changes in perks and facilities in a way that working journalists are affected," read a statement issued today by the Commission's secretary Bed Prasad Bhattarai. The Commission's attention is seriously drawn to the complaints that some media outlets did not pay working journalists, removed them from their jobs and transferred them to remote areas for no apparent reason during lockdown, read the statement.

The Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ), the umbrella organisation of working journalists of the country, has said that more than 2,000 working journalists from across the country have been removed from their jobs.