Press Advisor to the prime minister Kundan Aryan has defended arrest of photojournalist of Deshsanchar online Barsha Shah outside the President's Office Thursday afternoon saying journalists cannot breach the prohibited zone.
Aryal, who teaches journalism at the Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus, defended Shah's arrest Friday afternoon after his tweet in the morning, that security persons do not salute a photographer who keeps a toy car in a legally imposed prohibited zone and clicks photos, drew wrath of the media persons and the public alike.
"A prohibited zone is prohibited for everyone. A journalist would be allowed to go to the runway showing the press pass otherwise," Aryal argued. "Nobody would have said anything had she clicked the photographs a little away from the ruckus. Journalists elsewhere click them from a distance using zoom lens." He opined that the big-talking journalists should carry zoom lens.
"I asked Indra Jit Rai (security advisor to home minister) and home secretary after reading the news. I also talked with personal secretary to president Bhesh Raj Dahal," Aryal stated. "The police treated the demonstrators with restraint at the beginning, according to them. The police personnel were then told from inside that photos were being clicked, and instructed to not allow clicking of photographs. A journalist was also arrested when removing persons from the prohibited zone."
When Setopati pointed that Shah, in a blog, has claimed that she was arrested by the police not during the ruckus but when she was about to board the vehicle after the program ended, Aryal expressed ignorance about that.
"I will not say whether it is a mistake or not," he said when Setopati asked whether he as a journalism teacher believes that the photojournalist committed a mistake. "I have not said so anywhere. What I have said is such incidents happen during confrontations. Journalists should not go to a prohibited zone with a press pass. They can click photographs from a distance. Journalists do not go to prohibited zone anywhere else," he defended.
When asked whether one cannot demonstrate at the prohibited zone or click photographs, he said one can click photos from a distance. "But she has gone on the spot and clicked photos. That is not allowed," he reaffirmed. "It is sad that she came in between the demonstrators and the police. Journalists are trained that security is paramount. One cannot go anywhere saying I have a press pass."
He also slammed the demonstration program, after which photojournalist Shah was arrested, organized to hand a toy car to the President's Office by collecting Rs 1 each from commoners in a symbolic protest against the government's decision to procure vehicles worth Rs 180 million for the president.
"There is a mistake in the design of the program itself. A president, according to the constitution, does not make any mistake and is not allowed to make any mistake," he stated. "What is the rational of protesting against the president for using this kind of vehicle?"
