KATHMANDU, Feb 15: Concerned over the growing incidence of rape in the country, the KP Sharma Oli government banned digital pornography some two years ago. But Oli himself has now become an unwitting victim of that decision.
The PM’s personal website has been blocked in Nepal after some pornographic content was uploaded thanks to his administration’s failure to renew the domain on time.
Anyone logging onto Oli’s personal website, kpsharmaoli.com, comes away feeling embarrassed. Visitors will encounter pornographic content instead of getting updates relating to Oli.
Since the domain was not renewed on time Oli lost the address of his webpage, allowing the host to sell it to anyone. And a man in Sichuan, China registered the website in his name and uploaded porn content, according to whois.com.
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Given the pornographic content on the domain, which used to be the personal website of the ruling party leader until 2016, the internet service providers blocked the website in Nepal. It’s not clear since when it was blocked.
If anyone tries to open the website from Nepal a notice from your internet service provider appears: website has been blocked as per the directions received from Ministry of Communication and Information Technology and Nepal Telecommunications Authority.
After failing to reclaim the previous address, Oli’s secretariat has registered a local domain, kpsharmaoli.com.np, as the personal website of the ruling party chief.
In 2018 the government came up with a policy of banning porn sites in the country, stating that such websites incited sexual violence. Following the decision as many as half a million domains have been blocked in Nepal, according to the Nepal Telecommunication Authority.
“About half a million sites with pornographic content have been blocked in Nepal so far,” NTA spokesman Min Prasad Aryal told Republica. One of the websites blocked was the previous personal website of Prime Minister Oli.
Following the availability of the internet, social media and personal websites became a fashion for political leaders during the 2013 Constituent Assembly elections.
Most of the influential party leaders registered their personal websites in their own names to publish statements, photos and other information. But negligence by some of them in keeping their personal websites up to date has led the government ending up banning the domain of Prime Minister Oli’s personal website which had become occupied by some others.
Following such failures to renew, the personal websites of Nepali Congress (NC) President Sher Bahadur Deuba and former prime minister Jhalanath Khanal are now parked for sale. The personal website of NC senior leader Ram Chandra Paudel has been occupied by a Chinese gambling company for the last few years.
Even the personal website of former prime minister Baburam Bhattarai, who is seen as tech friendly, has been inactive for long. The site was down for months until Republica inquired about it. His secretariat then revived the website, www.baburambhattarai.com, which is registered in the name of a media owner instead of his secretariat, according to whois.com.
“We have been working to restructure his website along with the Samajbadi Party’s website. We will regularly update the site from mid-April,” said Bishwadeep Pandey, deputy chief of communications at Samajbadi Party.
Unlike many other leaders, former prime ministers Madhav Nepal and Pushpa Kamal Dahal have been regularly updating their personal websites. Dahal has appointed an aide to keep updating his social media and personal website.
