A leading international rights watchdog, Amnesty International (AI) has called on His Majesty King Gyanendra to act immediately on his pledge of total commitment to human rights principles and statement that “people must be allowed to exercise their democratic rights in a peaceful manner.” The Amnesty quoted His Majesty’s remarks in a proclamation to the nation on Wednesday on the anniversary of his direct rule.

”For these statements to be made true, the government must release immediately and unconditionally all those who have been detained for the peaceful exercise of their rights during a crackdown on the political opposition over the past two weeks,” the Amnesty said in its statement on Thursday.

According to reliable estimates, more than 1,350 people have been arrested since 19 January for either organizing or participating in political demonstrations. Of those, at least 888 are believed to be still detained. The majority of those detained have been non-violent protestors—including prominent peace activists such as Krishna Pahadi, Dr. Mathura Shrestha, and Dr. Devendra Raj Panday, the Amnesty statement said.

While most of the attention has been focused on events in the Kathmandu Valley, there are concerns that security forces in outlying districts are operating with little scrutiny, the London-based rights watchdog said.

On 1 February, for instance, local activists reported that of 54 people arrested during a rally in the western town of Birendranagar, in Surkhet district, 20 were wounded or seriously injured by members of the security forces. The security force personnel reportedly kicked demonstrators and beat them with batons, even after taking them into custody. Security force personnel were also said to have fired 15 rounds of teargas, shot guns into the air, and threw stones at demonstrators from rooftop positions—all of which contributed to an atmosphere of panic, the statement added.

Amnesty International also called on the government to investigate promptly all allegations involving the use of excessive force to control demonstrations.

In addition, the government must lift restrictions on freedoms of assembly, association and expression that have been imposed through a series of royal ordinances and bureaucratic regulations since the royal takeover one year ago, the statement said.

Restrictions on civil and political rights have made it increasingly difficult for human rights defenders, including journalists, to carry out their monitoring work—thereby masking the severity of ongoing human rights abuses committed in the context of Nepal’s decade-long armed conflict between the security forces and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Amnesty said.

In a separate statement issued on Tuesday, Amnesty International had called the CPN (Maoist) to end all violent attacks on civilians. The AI urged the CPN (Maoist) leadership to state publicly and unequivocally that it was against the Party’s policy to target civilians, including election candidates, and to instruct its cadres accordingly.

Amnesty International also calls on the CPN (Maoist) to remove from their posts any cadres responsible for human rights abuses.