Kathmandu, March 22
Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN) has defended a controversial report prepared by the EU’s election observer mission to Nepal.
The organisation, which has been lobbying for the rights of indigenous communities, said that the EU was right to call for an end to reservation for members of the Khas/Aryan community, a day after the government issued a strong-worded statement against the report. The government had said that the EU observer mission went beyond its mandate to comment on the reservation system.
In a statement on Thursday, NEFIN criticised the government for acting on impulse to respond to the report, made public a few days ago. The organisation’s chair Jagat Bahadur Baram said that the the EU’s report paints an accurate picture of the political situation of Nepal. He says that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs unfortunately misinterpreted the most ‘beautiful’ aspects of the report.
NEFIN has called on the foreign ministry to rectify the claims made in the statement.
