Maoist Victims Protest: Transcript

Victims of Maoist violence in Nepal demand to be heard.

TRANSCRIPT: To help bear each other's mental and physical scars, victims of Maoist rebels in Nepal have formed a group called the Maoist Victims' Association.   They also protest what they say is a lack of governmental support for their plight.

On a rooftop in Kathmandu, there's an office for a group called the Maoist Victims' Association. These are people that have all been victimized by the Maoist rebels. people that have been beaten or had family members killed, they all come here to meet for solidarity and support, and also to voice their concerns, to show their scars - where they were beaten, where they were tortured.

This man was hit with the back of an axe handle. He's angry; he says the Maoists tortured him for two hours but the government has tortured him for eight years, because he can't get support.

In another room nearby, they make homemade signs, putting glue on the back of cardboard, pasting mimeograph sheets on them. They'll carry these in the streets, hopefully to make their demands to the Home Minister of Nepal - letting him know that they want to go home. Many of these people are displaced.

They make the homemade signs with sticks and nails, there's not even a hammer around, they have to pound with a crowbar.

They begin walking toward the building where the Home Minister is said to be meeting with some other cabinet members. They carry their signs.

There are about 120 strong, many of them families with children, many of them displaced - people who want to go home to their villages but because of the conflict, because of the insurgency, they can't.

They walk in the streets, some people beep in support, others try just to get them out of the way.

Police meet them at the building. They ask to be allowed in to present their petitions to the Home Minister. Many of them get angry because they are refused.

Eventually, the gate is closed.

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