A side note: by banning social media apps, the government also cut off communication with emigrees earning money in foreign countries.
So, power tried entrenching itself, and power also tried f*cking with a critical part of the Nepalese economy, and then cops used violence.
Currently the military is trying to enforce a curfew. As much as I’ve been told, they aren’t shooting violators at the moment, but telling them to go home.
As far as I know, the central offices of all 3 branches of government + a whole lot of other stuff got burnt down.
This is being referred to as the Gen-Z Protests by all media, not just the above. It comes from Nepali media (जेन-जे विरोध, literally ‘Gen-J protests’) and possibly has a different tone or connotations in Nepali, I don’t know.
There’s been some discontent in Nepal for a while now, the government being viewed as authoritarian and corrupt.
But what’s kicked this off is the government banning social media apps.
So, all these social media companies had a week to register with the government, because of a new law, but most didn’t. So the government banned them and blocked access (nearly all the big ones - apparently tiktok registered and stayed up, as far as I can tell). This happened on the 4th September.
Some people think that curtailing social media use is a direct attempt to stop people drawing attention to corruption: the leading hashtag in Nepal was apparently ‘#NepoKids’ (as in nepotism). I don’t know if that is in English or in translation though.
Yesterday, on the 8th, there were big protests and demonstrations. It’s hard to get a breakdown of what exactly happened - I don’t speak Nepali - but protesters tried to enter parliament, the military responded with tear gas, and before long 19 protesters had been killed.
This obviously sparked a reaction, and it’s still ongoing. The PM has resigned, some officials have apparently fled or tried to flee the country. Lots of places are being set on fire, including prisons (it seems like prisoners are escaping rather than being burnt alive). Some sites say that the social media apps are back online and unblocked now, I don’t know.
It turns out that a lot of false information was deliberately spread, and several groups in Nepal tried to hijack the demonstrations carried out by Gen-Z. They incited the masses to vandalize and burn buildings.
This is somewhat a bit different from what happened in Indonesia, where armed forces intelligence infiltrated, incited, and mobilized the masses to carry out vandalism.
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Word coming out of Nepal is suggesting that this wasn’t / isn’t about social media, it’s just being reframed as such to minimise what’s happening, as if it’s just silly kids (being that it’s Gen z and Gen alpha) who can’t cope without social media. But what happened was the two party system they’ve been running on, since abolishing the monarchy, formed a coalition and then ran everything so as to profit for themselves, and flaunted that lavish lifestyle, while there were no jobs and they’d cut all essential services to the people. People were having to travel to other countries for jobs and send money home for their families. The nepo baby hashtags are the politicians kids, flaunting their lavish lifestyles. The people could have just used vpns, it’s not about the social media ban, main stream media is trying to quash what’s happening in case other people who are currently similarly oppressed, become emboldened by what’s happening in Nepal. Their government is very corrupt.
Thanks for the explanation
Bit weird to pin it on an age generation
Back in the 60s, 70s, and some in the 80’s you’d see the term “student protests” used a lot even though the demographic reached much further. My best guess is that the tag is attributed to whomever started the original protests and it stays that way from that point forth.
The Nepali media are referring to the whole thing as the Gen-Z protest (जेन-जे विरोध). It might still be weird, or it might be less weird not in translation
It’s probably playing off the toppling of the govt in Bangladesh that I’ve seen called the ‘Gen-Z Revolution’.
Yeah, I’m sure it wasn’t just genz.
It seems like the prime minister and the government as a whole failed to read the room.
Alternative headline, if the victim was poor: resident dies in house fire, government building also catches fire, possible link.
What the fuck? They burned someone alive? That’s cruel, no matter who it’s done to
Don’t you think it’s cruel to seize control of the state and use it to rob and murder your fellow citizens? Action, reaction.
Some 20 protestors were killed and that turned protests into riots.
If we’re at the point where politicians are being killed and fleeing the country, we might be moving past mere “riots” and into civil war territory.
I haven’t seen any reports on whether there’s an organized opposition, I expect that’ll be the key to turning this into some sort of positive change rather than a paroxysm of violence followed by even more extreme repression.
Edit: I went and did a little digging. There are opposition parties, but many of them are apparently just as entrenched into the network of corruption that these protests are about at their root. There’s one newer party, the Rastriya Swatantra Party, that could potentially be an actual “anti-establishment” party. But it’s untested, nobody knows how genuine their stance is. Otherwise peoples’ hopes seem to be left in the hands of a collection of smaller regional and ethnic parties that’ll have to suddenly find a lot of unity to pull off any reforms.
The Nepali army is also a major factor, we’ll have to see what “side” they end up backing.
I went and did a little digging. There are opposition parties
Tnx for your digwork. Haven’t done that myself now.
What I do remember from some older tv documentary was basically that Chinese Gvement was using local politicians for greater CCP dogma into Nepal via schoolchildren books. Locals mentioned the fear of the eradication of Nepalese culture and lenguage, iirc.
Add: found this link
" According to the Chinese embassy in Nepal, there are more than 900 Mandarin teachers in Nepal who are already teaching the language in various parts of the country. Additionally, China is also promoting its films, arts, and culture in Nepal through various means"
Idk the addresses of any politicians.
https://apnews.com/article/nepal-genz-protest-social-media-ban-9dc6ecd2c089141cc8c36af5949cfc09
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal’s government responded to escalating violent protests over a ban on popular social media platforms with deadly force. The public outrage over the ban and the deaths of 19 protesters on Monday led to the resignation of the prime minister and exposed deep discontent over corruption.
Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli also rolled backed the short-lived ban after protesters turned their anger on politicians by setting fire to homes of some of the country’s top leaders.
Your government probably hasn’t banned social media.
Also try fastpeoplesearch to start.
Cool thanks!
I was on a small film festival over the weekend and one of the films was from Nepal, followed by a talk with the makers. You don’t see a single motorized vehicle throughout, just horses and yak (?). The film makers swore this is what life is like in the mountains right now. Not even smartphones (no coverage I guess).
Anyhow, I don’t think any of us were aware of the upheaval going on in Nepal and the film makers didn’t volunteer the info.
Most of the population is concentrated in Kathmandu, the capital of the country.
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