Press Council Nepal, a media regulatory body, has written a letter to the Nepal Telecommunicaitons Authority to shutdown 15 online news portals on April 5.
According to the letter, the Council has requested to shutdown the media following complaint filed by the News Agency Nepal stating that the concerned online news portals copied its contents which were shared among agency's subscribers and published on their website.
The Council's letter further stated that the concerned online news portals were not found to be registered and listed in the Council and have violated journalists' code of conduct. Thus, the news sites should be blocked in Nepal until the next decision.
The news portals are banikhabar.com, harekinfo.com, sanchartime.com, khabarpapers.com, malayakhabar.com,
hamrosutra.com, directsamachar.com, kantipurpati.com, nepalbishesh.com, nepaltajabnahas.com, junelikhabar.com,
bihanimedia.com, setobaagh.com, londonnepalnews.com and spacesamachar.com.
Copying and disseminating one's content without mentioning source is unethical and unprofessional practice. It is evidently against journalists' code of conduct and FF also urges media houses to abide by code.
But the Council's move to shut down the media is beyond its jurisdiction. Misuse of ISP against media is also a wrong practice.
The Council needs to encourage best practice rather than blocking news media, thereby breaching media freedom. At the same time, media houses must abide by code.
The Council must not be misused to suppress press freedom.
For more information,
Freedom Forum
monitoring@freedomforum.org.np