Press Council Nepal, the government's media regulatory body, has given continuity to block news websites illegally amid protest from the stakeholders.
With three news online portals being blocked from Thursday, the number of total blocked websites has crossed 100 in Nepal, according to acting chairperson of the council Kishor Shrestha.
The council has claimed that news websites were blocked for spreading hoax and violating media code of ethics.
Council writes to the Nepal Telecommunication Authority to restrict access to the online portals from Nepal and the authority asks internet service providers to block the sites accordingly. Officials at the office have claimed that they have been blocking only those sites which are involved in spreading hoax and not registered to the concerned government authorities.
Government's action to stop publishing fake news is appreciable, but directly blocking the news sites is condemnable. Instead government could have used different mechanism to stop publishing fake news. Freedom Forum condemns the incident. Hence, FF urges concerned authority to respect the rights to press freedom and freedom of expression.