Nepal Lifts Social-Media Ban After at Least 19 Die Protesting the Prohibition
By Krishna Pokharel
Protesters who breached barricades around country’s Parliament were also demonstrating against alleged corruption
Nepal’s government lifted a sweeping social-media ban late Monday after the days-old prohibition sparked clashes between protesters and police that left at least 19 people dead, according to two state-run news outlets.
Earlier on Monday in the national capital Kathmandu, demonstrators clashed with the police as some of them sought to break into the country’s Parliament. Nepal’s army was called onto the streets outside Parliament to restore order and enforce a curfew, according to the state-run outlets. Similar protests have erupted across the country.
Nepal’s government lifted a sweeping social-media ban late Monday after the days-old prohibition sparked clashes between protesters and police that left at least 19 people dead, according to two state-run news outlets.
Earlier on Monday in the national capital Kathmandu, demonstrators clashed with the police as some of them sought to break into the country’s Parliament. Nepal’s army was called onto the streets outside Parliament to restore order and enforce a curfew, according to the state-run outlets. Similar protests have erupted across the country.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli said he was heartbroken by deaths of citizens during the protests. “Today’s situation was created by a lack of sufficient information about our efforts to regulate social media in accordance with the law and the court’s order, and some misunderstanding among the Gen Z generation,” Oli said.
Nepal’s home minister, Ramesh Lekhak, had resigned earlier in the day, accepting moral responsibility for the situation, state media said, adding that the government would form a committee to investigate the violence.
The Home Ministry and police officials couldn’t immediately be reached to comment.
Monday’s protest was called by young Nepalese who described it as a “Gen Z” protest against the social-media ban and corruption in the government. The label is generally used to refer to people born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s.
They began with a peaceful congregation in the morning, with many of the protesters in their school uniforms carrying book bags and waving pamphlets with messages such as “Revoke the ban, restore our voice!” and “Say no to corruption, say yes to integrity.”
Nepal is the latest country in the region to see young protesters rise up against the government. In Bangladesh, protesters angry over a lack of economic opportunity ended up toppling the government in 2024, while in 2022 protesters in Sri Lanka forced out the government of the Rajapaksa political dynasty.
The Nepal government on Thursday announced a ban on more than two dozen social-media platforms, including Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp among others. It took effect Friday. Authorities said the platforms had failed to register themselves with the government and appoint local representatives for grievance handling and content monitoring in keeping with the government’s 2023 rules for regulating social media.
Information Minister Prithvi Subba Gurung said after the government decision to lift the ban that the administration wanted to have the support and goodwill of Gen Z but that the restrictions on social-media platforms were about “protecting the country’s reputation.”
“They come and do business in our country, take away billions of rupees and yet say ‘why should we register in your country,’” Gurung said.
In late August, the authorities directed the companies to comply within a week or face a ban, citing the rules and a recent order from the country’s Supreme Court that the social-media companies must operate within Nepal’s legal framework. The government had said the new rules were intended to combat hate speech and misinformation.
Riot police chased demonstrators during a protest in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Monday.
The regulations and ban were imposed as Nepal’s politicians have faced increasing criticism online and as the country has seen a growing protest movement, both online and in the streets, that supports bringing back the country’s monarchy, which officially ended in 2008.
The ban had left only a few platforms available to Nepalese, including Chinese short-video platform TikTok, after they fell in line with the government’s directives.
The ban on social media was felt deeply in a country that has a large diaspora made up of people who have migrated across the world for work and education, and where apps like Facebook messenger and WhatsApp have been vital to keep friends and family close.
The protest turned violent after the crowd surged and demonstrators clashed with the police, who were trying to stop them from marching on the road to Parliament. Police used tear-gas canisters and fired into the air to disperse the protests, the state-news outlets said. Videos posted to social media showed police using water cannons.
After some protesters stormed into Parliament, one of the protest organizers wrote in a forum on the instant-messaging app Discord, which was among the banned social-media platforms, that the “invasion” wasn’t initiated by the protesters, who stand for “peaceful change—not violence.”
By Monday evening, as news of the protesters’ deaths spread, a discussion hub on Discord was filled with anger against the government.
“As a so-called government, you should have had the guts to accept the protest in any form,” one user wrote. “Instead, you showed your true rotten face—killing, destroying, and failing the children who wanted to make their country beautiful and safe to live in.”
Monday’s protest channeled rising discontent with the politicians running the country since the end of the monarchy and criticism that leaders have done little to improve economic opportunities for Nepalese.
Those grievances are helping to fuel a nascent but growing movement calling for the restoration of the former monarchy. Violent protests erupted in the national capital earlier this year calling for the monarch to be reinstalled.
Hridayendra Shah, the young grandson of the last king, is at the center of the hopes of many joining that movement. His grandfather, Gyanendra Shah, ceded to widespread protests after his rule took an increasingly authoritarian turn as Nepal was mired in political chaos and in the midst of a violent Maoist rebellion.
After Hridayendra Shah recently released a video blog of his travels to one of the least developed parts of the country, it became a popular topic of discussion among Nepali social-media users.
Original source: https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/at-least-19-die-in-nepal-protests-against-social-media-ban-78b0411e?mod=RSSMSN
