Chaos has erupted in Nepal, with deaths, injuries, and government buildings set ablaze as thousands of young people protest against social media bans and rampant corruption. Several platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, and X, have been inaccessible in Nepal since last Friday, after the government blocked 26 unregistered platforms, leaving users angry and confused.
Since the early hours of the morning, tens of thousands of young protesters, Generation Z, who have decided to sweep away the nepotism and corruption that dominate the Himalayan country, have taken to the streets and, defying the curfew, have expressed anger and grief over the deaths yesterday of nineteen of their number and the injuries of four hundred others in clashes with the police.
As clashes escalated with Nepalese police firing rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons to disperse protesters in Kathmandu, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned "to help normalise the situation," along with three other ministers.
The news did not stop the protests, which instead grew increasingly violent. One after another, the Parliament, the President's office, the Supreme Court, courthouses, tax offices, and the headquarters of Nepal's largest publishing company, which publishes the Kantipur Post, were set on fire. The protesters did not even spare the royal palaces, which constitute the fragile remnants of the country's precious cultural heritage, already devastated by the 2015 earthquake. After the institutions, it was the turn of the homes of political establishment leaders, torched and ransacked with slogans like "neta chor, desh chod" (thieving politicians, leave the country).
Among the victims was Rajyalaxmi Chitrakar, wife of former Nepalese Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal, who died from burns sustained in today's arson attack on her home in the Dallu neighborhood of Kathmandu . She was in the house set ablaze by protesters; taken to the hospital in critical condition, she died a few hours later. Her husband, a member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), resigned from his post in 2011, but is considered by protesters to be a member of the old guard still in power in the country who must step aside.
Nepal finds itself this evening without a government, cut off from the outside world, with the airport, just ten minutes from the city center, blocked, and the army, after calling for a halt to the violence, declaring itself "committed to protecting national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the unity of the country." And with prospects for the future more uncertain than ever.
Because, although President Paudel has called on all parties to engage in dialogue in the coming days to resolve the crisis, the true protagonists of the uprising that has shaken the country over the last 48 hours are the young people of Generation Z. All under 30, many of them students, united in a nonpartisan movement that recognizes no flag and is demanding greater freedom of expression, an end to corruption, and the rejuvenation of a political class whose leaders have an average age of 70. A movement that has so far had no representatives. Except, perhaps, for Balendra Shah, known as Balen, the civil engineer and rapper who, due to his reputation as an anti-corruption champion, was elected mayor of Kathmandu as an independent in 2022. Today, many refer to him as "the voice of Generation Z," the non-politician who, from a local perspective, could assume a national role and usher in a new era for the former "Land of the Gods."
(Unioneonline)