Kathmandu, January 23: Former employee of the Bhutan Broadcasting Service Corporation Nanda Gautam has sought support of Vincent Brossel, chief of Reporters Sans Frontiers in freeing Shantiram Acharya who has been given seven-and-half years jail term. 

In a letter to the Paris based press freedom watchdog, Gautam said Acharya was simply doing his duty of a journalist, that the government has assumed as a ‘traitor’ simply because he was working for the media operated in exile- The Bhutan Reporter, a monthly news bulletin. 

“Campaign for the release of Mr. Acharya from the international communities is very urgent and essential because the Bhutanese legal system does not provide lawyer for the convict and the trial is not fair. There is also no provision to release Acharya in bail. Therefore I humbly request your secretariat to kindly urge Bhutanese regime through its Honorary Consulate Dr. Francoise Pommaret in Paris,” Gautam said. Bhutan News Service