Secretary Murari Prasad Kharel has said that cyber crime complaints have started coming to the National Human Rights Commission recently. According to him, the number of such complaints is increasing and alarming. He said that since the commission used to look only at 'offline' issues, now it is necessary to monitor human rights violations on digital platforms as well.
In the 'Digital Rights Summit 2025' program organized by Digital Rights Nepal on Friday, Kharel, Secretary of the Commission, informed that the Commission is going to formulate a policy and program on human rights violations through digital platforms.
"Until yesterday, offline issues were looked into in the Commission, but now the issues of human rights violations through digital platforms have also started coming to us," he said, "There is no longer a situation where the Commission will not look into this issue." According to
Kharel, issues like social security, cybercrime and e-commerce are directly linked to freedom of expression and personal privacy. "The issues related to digital space are deeply related to human rights," he said, "the commission is making regular suggestions to the government on this matter." He believes that the number of such complaints has increased due to the general belief that complaints will be heard in the commission.
Secretary Kharel also pointed out that the practice of positively accepting healthy criticisms on social media is weak in Nepal.
'As soon as we get criticism, we are being banned and controlled,' he said, 'digital space should be regulated, but our policies are coming in a way to control it.' He also commented that he took the opposite way of controlling by making guidelines first.
