KABUL — The Afghan government has blocked access to four websites with President Hamid Karzai’s name in the address that are critical of the Afghan leader or have links to sites advertising locally taboo subjects such as online dating and mail-order brides.
The shutdown order comes ahead of the country’s Aug. 20 presidential election. An Information Ministry spokesman initially said the original complaint about two of the sites came from the Karzai campaign. Karzai’s campaign spokesman agreed but then called back to deny involvement. Afghan coverage of the presidential race has been dominated by Karzai, while his 40 opponents complain they have received scant attention in state-run media, forcing them to campaign in person or on the Internet in a country where daily travel can be deadly and few have home computers.
The Information Ministry ordered the country’s 25 Internet service providers to shut down access to four websites bearing Karzai’s name and one with the name of an Afghan Cabinet minister, the director of the Afghan Telecom Regulatory Authority said Saturday.
The four sites all bear the president’s full or last name, but they clearly don’t have Karzai’s backing. asks “Is Hamid Karzai anything more than a puppet?” in a blaring red headline. The site calls Karzai an “inefficient” politician and says he came into power because of his “long-standing ties with the CIA.”
The site is registered in Springfield, Va., according to the website , which publishes Internet registration records.
