Nepal ‘Gen Z’ protest over social media ban kills 14
Unrest killed at least 14 people and injured dozens in Nepal’s capital on Monday, state TV said, as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters trying to storm parliament in anger at a social media shutdown and corruption.
Some protesters forced their way into the parliament complex by breaking through a barricade, a local official said, setting fire to an ambulance, hurling objects at riot police and ferrying the injured to hospital on motorcycles.
“The police have been firing indiscriminately,” one protester told the ANI news agency. “(They) fired bullets which missed me but hit a friend who was standing behind me. He was hit in the hand.”
There was no official confirmation of the deaths and injuries and Reuters could not independently verify the figures.
Ekram Giri, a parliamentary spokesperson, said some protesters had entered the premises but not the main building, and had been driven out by police.
Organisers of the protests, which spread to other cities in the Himalayan country, have called them “demonstrations by Gen Z”. They say the protests reflect young people’s widespread frustration with the government and anger over its policies.
“This is the protest by the new generation in Nepal,” another protester told ANI.
A government decision to block access to several social media platforms, including Facebook, last week has fuelled anger among the young. About 90 per cent of Nepal’s 30 million people use the internet.
Batons and rubber bullets
Police had orders to use water cannons, batons and rubber bullets to control the crowd and the army has been deployed in the area of the protests to bolster law enforcement officers, Muktiram Rijal, a spokesperson for the Kathmandu district office, told Reuters.
He said the curfew, which will remain in force until 10 p.m. local time (1615 GMT), had been extended to Kathmandu’s Singha Durbar area, which includes the prime minister’s office and other government buildings.
Police said similar protests were also organised in Biratnagar and Bharatpur in the southern plains and in Pokhara in western Nepal.
Thousands of young people, including students, many in their school or college uniforms, joined the protest earlier on Monday.
Many carried the national flag and placards with slogans such as “Shut down corruption and not social media”, “Unban social media”, and “Youths against corruption”, as they marched through Kathmandu.
Many people in the Himalayan nation think corruption is rampant, and the government of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has been criticised by opponents for failing to deliver on its promises.
Nepal’s social media shutdown comes as governments worldwide, including the US, EU, Brazil, India, China and Australia, take steps to tighten oversight of social media and Big Tech due to growing concern about issues such as misinformation, data privacy, online harm and national security.
Critics say many of these measures risk stifling free expression, but regulators say stricter controls are needed to protect users and preserve social order.