The past few days has seen a series of protests in Nepal. Around the world this has been reduced to a reactionary response by youth to a "social media ban". This is a shallow obfuscation of the actual situation which has seen a long build up across the counrty against the corruption, nepatisim and authoritarian policy the people find in the government, one which has for ten years centralised it's power base and the political infrastructure and suspended democratic process at will.

The current wave of protests have spiralled forward into an uprising in response to the governments attempts to brutally silence it. Police have gone from riot gear and barricades to water cannons and baton rounds, to military vehicles and weaponry using live fire resulting in purposeful murder. The movement is overwhelming compromised of younger people, some 19 of which have been murdered so far with over 400 seriously injured.

Ofcourse there is the usual barking about "outside intervention", "western influences" and "Anarchic infilitrators making the movement look band" and so on, global commentry looking to frame the situation in a way that serves them, usually this stems from people whose picture of Nepal is limited to a big hill, some sherpas and some vague esoteric ephemera.In truth, the dramatic scenes that now flow are the results of years of police violence. They are organic and of the people of Nepal.

With that in mind here is a series of communications from comrades in the region.

On September 5, 2025, Nepal’s government banned 26 social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, X, YouTube, and Reddit, saying they didn’t follow the Directive for Regulating the Use of Social Media, 2080 (2023/2024) to stop “hate speech.” But let’s be honest: this was to silence us. Social media is our lifeline where 70% of Nepal’s youth use it. It’s how 2 million workers abroad talk to family, how young people earn money in a country with massive unemployment, and how we expose corruption, like the latest videos in social media shaming politicians’ rich kids. This ban is about control, not safety.

Today, September 8, 2025, thousands of unarmed Gen Z, students, and citizens marched peacefully from Kathmandu’s Maitighar Mandala to Parliament, waving flags, carrying books, and holding signs: “Shut down corruption, not social media.” They demanded an end to graft and digital censorship. But the state answered with blood. Chief District Officer Chhabi Rizal authorized rubber bullets “to protect public property,” starting with water cannons and batons. Then, defying orders, police fired live ammunition. Eyewitnesses saw real bullets pulled from victims, where a student shot in the head while in his school uniform. At least 14 are dead, students among them, many in uniforms and over 100 injured.

This is state-sanctioned murder. Targeting students in uniforms violates Nepal’s education laws made by Ministry of Education directives (2021) which declared it illegal to involve kids in political rallies in uniform, as schools are “peace zones” under policies protecting minors. While the organizers used uniforms to symbolize youth, the government turned them into targets, possibly breaching the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Now, the government is definitely going to state it as “Gen Z protests lead to casualties and damage to Nepal’s property,” blaming “anarchists” to dodge accountability. This is their vindictive agenda to protect the corrupt elite. Parents wait, terrified, for children who’ll never return. How is this our home when our streets are killing fields?

This is Louis Althusser’s had stated in his theory of repressive state apparatus (rsa) where when propaganda fails, the state unleashes police and army to silence us, painting us as threats while corruption festers.