The Parliament, the Supreme Court and the judicial district, the houses of political representatives starting from the Premier resigning Sharma Oli, 21 deaths (including the wife of the former prime minister who lost his life in the fire of his home) and over 400 injured, are on fire. It is the summary budget of two days of violence of the “generation Z” in Kathmandu, triggered yesterday by the closure of 26 social platforms on the internet used to denounce corruption, endemic in the country.
The protests, which began yesterday with the request to the government to revoke the ban on social media and to fight corruption, rekindled despite the apps have returned online. The demonstrators today attacked and set fire to the house of Kp Sharma Oli, 73 years old, four times prime minister and leader of the Communist Party. Protesters, some armed with assault rifles, gathered outside the main government buildings. Smoking columns also covered the Nepalese Parliament, while the demonstrators set fire to the building after assaulting it and devastated. “Hundreds of people broke into the Parliament area and set fire to the main building,” said Ekram Giri, spokesman for the Parliament secretariat.
“I resigned from the office of prime minister with effect from today … in order to undertake further steps towards a political solution and the resolution of problems,” said Oli in a note.
Elected Prime Minister for the first time in 2015, he was re-elected in 2018, briefly reconfirmed in 2021 and then took power in 2024, after his Communist Party formed a coalition government with the center-left Nepalese congress in an often unstable parliament. His resignation followed those of three other ministers, and they arrived despite the government had repealed the ban.
The slogans that asked the authorities to account for their actions were a characteristic of the protests. Several social media, including Facebook, YouTube and X, were blocked on Friday in the Himalayana nation of 30 million inhabitants, after the government blocked access to 26 unregistered platforms. Amnesty International said that real ammunition against demonstrators and United Nations were used yesterday asked for a quick and transparent investigation. From Friday, a video that compare the difficulties of the Nepalese municipalities with those of the children of politicians who flaunt luxury goods and expensive holidays have become viral on Tiktok, who has not been blocked.
Popular platforms such as Instagram have millions of users in Nepal who rely on them for entertainment, news and business. Others rely on the messaging apps. “It is not just a social media: it is a question of trust, corruption and a generation that refuses to remain silent,” wrote the newspaper The Kathmandu Post.