Nepal (MNN) — Nepal’s Gen Z continues to rock the nation with protests against government corruption.
Demonstrations broke out after the Nepali government blocked several social media platforms. The platforms had allegedly failed to register with the government.
“Gen Z [is] just frustrated with corruption. It started with an anti-corruption movement,” Joe Handley with A3 says. “Their main means of communication with each other and with the world is social media. So they’re protesting against [corruption], but you add to it that their communication channels are shut down. So the tension rises within them.”
Clashes on Monday between protesters and police killed at least 19 people. On Monday night, the government lifted the social media ban, but that did not stop the riots.
Photo in the Ason Bazar, Kathmandu, Nepal (Photo courtesy of Aayush Lama Tamang via Unsplash)
“This is the generation, at least there in Nepal, [that is] looking for a better future. They feel like this government has not provided that for them,” says Handley.
Nepal’s Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned on Tuesday over the unrest, but young demonstrators still set the parliament building and other structures in Kathmandu on fire.
Handley says that after the ban lifted on Monday, reports from their partners began to increase. “If you’re on social media, you’re seeing smoke rising in Kathmandu, all over different parts of the town.” (See a collection of pictures here.)
The government is calling for restraint and dialogue. A3’s network of alumni is calling for prayer.
“They’re trying to be agents of peace in the midst of the chaos — and having to be careful too, because there [are] guns being shot and fire billowing in the capital,” Handley says.
“My colleagues are begging the global Church to pray for peace, to pray that they could be agents of hope and good news, and that the gospel would shine.”
Header photo courtesy of Samrat Khadka via Unsplash.
