Revenge politics and paranoia are distracting the government of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli from Nepal’s urgent problems a year after an earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people. Nepal’s government has been struggling to find firm footing since the end of a decade-long insurgency in 2006 and the tumultuous process of adopting a new Constitution last September.

On May 3, the government moved to revoke the valid work visa of a Canadian citizen, Robert Penner, and to request that he “voluntarily” leave the country after it received anonymous complaints that his Twitter posts were “spreading unnecessary messages about Nepal.” Mr. Penner had tweeted about a Human Rights Watch report on deaths and injuries last fall during protests against the newConstitution by Madhesi and other ethnic groups.

The groups felt boundaries in a new federal system disenfranchised them. During the protests at Nepal’s southern border, trade from India was halted, causing hardship for many Nepalese and straining relations between the countries. On Friday, Nepal canceled a scheduled visit to India by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari.

Mr. Penner had also been critical of the arrest on April 22 of a prominent journalist and activist, Kanak Mani Dixit. Nepal’s Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority ordered the arrest during an investigation into alleged misappropriation of funds by Mr. Dixit, who is also chairman of a public transportation company. Lokman Singh Karki, a longtime nemesis of Mr. Dixit’s, is head of the commission. Mr. Dixit has fully cooperated with the investigation. His arrest prompted an international outcry, and Nepal’s Supreme Court rightly ordered his release on May 2.