On June 9, police arrested seven people – two school principals and five staff members of a Christian NGO – for distributing books about Christianity to the students of two Christian schools in the Dolakha District headquarters of Charikot. Several days later, police arrested a Christian pastor who had introduced the NGO staff to the local schools. All eight individuals were charged under the criminal and civil code with attempted conversion. On December 6, the Dolakha District Court acquitted the accused of all charges. Christian groups stated the arrest was the first reported instance of attempted enforcement of the constitutional ban on conversion and represented a test case for its enforcement. Human rights lawyers, Christian groups, and leaders of other religious minorities all said the case increased their concerns the constitution’s ban on conversion could make religious minorities subject to legal prosecution for actions carried out in the normal course of their religious practices, and also vulnerable to societal persecution for preaching, public displays of faith, or distribution of religious materials. After the court announced its decisions on December 6, Christian leaders expressed relief and said it increased their belief in justice and the rule of law in the country.
In August the media reported police in Jhapa District arrested a foreign Christian for proselytizing after community members protested his activities in their area. The Department of Immigration deported the individual approximately a week later for being in the country without a visa.
According to an NGO supporting indigenous people’s rights, in September four people were arrested in Panchthar District and subsequently charged with slaughtering a cow. They were released on their own recognizance one week later. As of the end of the year, the case remained pending in the district court.
In July police in Kathmandu detained approximately 30 Tibetans during a celebration of the Dalai Lama’s 81st birthday, but released them without charge several hours later. The police provided no reason for the detention. Human rights groups reported police had refused some individuals entry into the celebration and did not allow people to enter or exit Jawalakhel Tibetan Settlement for several hours. No further information about the incident was available.
According to the Jhapa District attorney’s office, the criminal case continued against four suspects for the detonation of small homemade explosive devices at three churches in Jhapa District in September 2015. All four suspects had been released on bail and remained free while the criminal case remained pending at year’s end. Police continued to search for three additional suspects, and there were no additional arrests made as of the end of the year.
Throughout the year, members of the parliament and the ruling coalition, including senior members of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal (RPP-N), the country’s fourth largest political party, made speeches calling for the re-establishment of the country as a Hindu state, and saying they would “drive out” Christians who sought to convert Hindus. On September 13, the media reported former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Kamal Thapa, the leader of RPP-N, called conversions an “epidemic” which had to be stopped.
Provisions regarding conversion in a draft new criminal and civil code under consideration by the parliament were subject to statements of concern by minority religious groups and human rights lawyers. They said the draft provisions constituted an expansion of the existing ban on conversion and could make religious minorities even more vulnerable to criminal penalties for proselytizing, as well as for preaching and other public expressions of faith.
According to legal experts and leaders of religious minority groups, the constitutional stipulation to protect the “age-old religion” and the prohibition on conversion were intended by the drafters of the constitution to mandate the protection of Hinduism.
Some Muslim leaders continued not to accept converts to Islam, saying it would violate the law according to their interpretation. Instead, they continued to recommend individuals seeking to convert to travel to India to do so.
In June the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development issued a directive to all District Development Committees to deny the registration of any NGOs preaching or promoting religious conversion. Christian groups reported encountering difficulties in registering as NGOs or nonprofits since June. Christian groups said District Development Committees occasionally asked organizations to remove religious words from their entity names and advised religious leaders registering organizations to remove their religious titles (e.g. Father, Reverend) from registration documentation in order to secure registration. Christian leaders expressed fears the new guidelines could potentially limit the establishment of churches.
In March the government led by then-Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli announced it would no longer recognize Christmas as a public holiday. The government said the decision was part of an effort to reduce the large number of public holidays. Christian groups stated the decision was a reflection of growing anti-Christian sentiment in the country, in view of the government’s continued recognition of dozens of Hindu holidays and some Muslim and Buddhist holidays. Following a change in government in August, Christian groups reportedly met several times with senior government officials, including a meeting on December 23 with new Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, to urge reinstatement of Christmas as a public holiday. On December 24, the government made an announcement restoring recognition of Christmas for the current year. Both the prime minister and President Bidya Devi Bhandari made public statements to commemorate celebration of the holiday.
Despite the brief detention of Tibetans during the celebration of the Dalai Lama’s birthday in July, Tibetan community leaders said government authorities generally continued to permit the resident Tibetan community to celebrate Buddhist holidays and to conduct other private ceremonies with cultural/religious significance, such as Losar, the Tibetan New Year. Tibetan leaders said they continued to mark certain anniversaries considered more politically sensitive, such as Tibetan Uprising Day, with small, quiet prayer ceremonies within Tibetan settlements. Abbots of Buddhist monasteries reported monasteries and their related social welfare projects generally continued to operate without government interference.
Muslim group leaders said Muslims continued to be able to participate in the Hajj. A Central Hajj Committee, made up of representatives of political parties, mosques, and civil society, under the authority of the Ministry of Home Affairs, continued to coordinate and facilitate logistics for the Hajj for all Muslims. The government paid for 10 committee members, compared to nine in the previous years, to travel to Saudi Arabia to carry out their work.
Christian leaders said the government-funded Pashupati Area Development Trust continued its restrictions preventing Christian burials in a common cemetery behind the Pashupati Hindu Temple in Kathmandu, while allowing burials of individuals from non-Hindu indigenous faiths. According to Christian leaders, the government continued its inconsistent enforcement of the court ruling requiring protection of congregations carrying out burials. Reportedly, in Parbat District community authorities refused to allow Christians to bury one of their deceased. In response to a complaint filed by the Christian community, the Ministry of Home Affairs instructed the chief district officer and district police to allow the burial to take place. Protestant churches continued to report difficulties gaining access to land they had bought five years prior for burials in the Kathmandu Valley in the names of individual parishioners. They stated local communities tended to oppose burial by groups perceived to be outsiders, but were more open to burials conducted by Christian members of their own communities. As a result, they reported, some Protestants in the Kathmandu Valley continued to travel to the countryside to conduct burials in unpopulated areas.
Catholic leaders reported almost all Catholic parishioners chose cremation due to past difficulties with burials. Many Christian communities outside of the Kathmandu Valley said they continued to be able to buy land for cemeteries, conduct burials in public forests, or use land belonging to indigenous communities for burials. They also said they continued to be able to use public land for this purpose.
Muslim groups stated individuals in the Kathmandu Valley continued to be able to buy land for cemeteries, but local Hindus sometimes refused to sell land to them. In the southern Terai region, where there were many Muslim-majority communities, Muslim groups said they continued not to encounter such problems.
Following the promulgation of the new constitution in 2015, Christian leaders said they had been hopeful the government would pass legislation allowing a church to register as a church and own property in the name of the church, rather than the current situation in which a church registered and owned property either as an NGO or in the name of an individual. As of the end of the year, however, they said the government had not taken any steps to pass such legislation.
According to Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim groups, the government continued to permit them to establish and operate their own community schools. The government continued to provide the same level of funding for registered religious schools as for public schools. Private Christian schools continued not to receive government funding. Although religious education continued not to be part of the curriculum in public schools, some public schools displayed a statue of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning, on their grounds.
According to the Department of Education, the executive office within the Ministry of Education, 765 madrassahs were registered with district education offices, an increase of 20 from the previous year. There were also 82 gumbas (Buddhist centers of learning) and 83 gurukhuls (Hindu centers of learning) registered with the Department of Education.
Some Muslim leaders stated there continued to be as many as 2,500 to 3,000 unregistered madrassahs. According to religious leaders, the reason there continued to be such a large number of unregistered madrassahs, as well as unregistered Buddhist and Hindu schools, was the desire of school operators to avoid government auditing and to follow their own curriculum rather than the curriculum set by the Department of Education for registered schools. They said some school operators also wished to avoid the registration process, which they characterized as cumbersome.
Christian leaders said missionary hospitals, welfare organizations, and schools continued to operate without government interference. They said the government usually did not expel foreign workers for proselytizing, but missionaries reported they attempted to keep their activities discreet. Many foreign Christian organizations had direct ties to local churches and continued to sponsor clergy for religious training abroad.