Authored By: Latta Hussein Abdalla
University of Nairobi
Abstract
This article examines the transformative impact of Generation Z-led movements on constitutional and international human rights law through their confrontation with state violence and digital repression. Against a global surge of youth-led uprisings from Kathmandu to Antananarivo, these movements have catalyzed a fundamental reexamination of protest rights, state accountability, and digital freedoms. The article argues that Gen Z activists are functioning as ‘new constitutionalists’ employing innovative digital strategies that simultaneously challenge oppressive regimes and reshape legal paradigms governing assembly, expression, and state violence. Through comparative analysis of recent movements in Nepal, Madagascar, Bangladesh, and across East Africa, the article demonstrates how digital native activism is testing the boundaries of traditional legal frameworks and creating new jurisprudential realities. Principal conclusions identify urgent needs for legal reform to protect digital assembly rights and establish accountability mechanisms for state violence against youthful protesters.
Introduction
The period of 2024–2025 has been defined by a paradigm shift in political resistance, catalysed by youth-led movements. In June 2024, Kenya’s “Gen Z” mobilised almost entirely via social media to protest the Finance Bill 2024, culminating in the “Occupy Parliament” demonstrations and a violent state crackdown. Weeks later, in July 2024, the Bangladesh quota reform movement, spearheaded by students, escalated into a nationwide uprising against state violence, leading to the resignation of the prime minister. By September 2025, Nepal witnessed its own “Gen Z” revolt, sparked by a controversial social media ban and fuelled by anger at political corruption.
In September 2025, Nepal’s government collapsed in under 48 hours. The trigger was a sweeping social media ban, but the tinder had been gathering for years systemic corruption, economic hopelessness, and generational alienation. As security forces opened fire on predominantly young protesters, killing at least 75 and injuring over 2,000, the movement transformed from digital dissent to physical revolution, culminating in the prime minister’s resignation and the burning of parliament. This episode exemplifies a broader global pattern: from Morocco to Madagascar, Bangladesh to Peru, Generation Z is mobilizing with unprecedented speed and sophistication to challenge authoritarian practices and state violence. These movements represent not merely political phenomena but fundamental challenges to existing legal frameworks governing assembly, expression, and state accountability. This article argues that Gen Z activists are functioning as ‘new constitutionalists’ through their digital-native resistance strategies, simultaneously confronting state violence and reshaping jurisprudence on protest rights, digital freedoms, and accountability mechanisms. These movements are characterised by their decentralised leadership, mastery of digital platforms for mobilisation and evidence-gathering, and a direct, uncompromising demand for constitutional compliance and accountability.
Research Methodology
This article employs a comparative legal methodology grounded in qualitative, analytical and doctrinal analysis of constitutional provisions, international human rights instruments, and emerging jurisprudence related to protest rights and state violence. The research synthesizes primary sources including international treaties, domestic legislation, and judicial decisions with secondary sources from academic literature, United Nations reports, and credible journalistic accounts of recent protests. The comparative approach examines various jurisdictions Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Madagascar, Bangladesh, Nepal, Morocco among others, selected for their recent experiences with significant youth-led mobilization and the diverse legal questions these movements have raised. The analysis acknowledges methodological limitations, including the evolving nature of these movements and potential gaps in verified information from contexts where media freedom is restricted. Source evaluation prioritized official documents, peer-reviewed scholarship, and reporting from established international media outlets with corroborating evidence.
Legal Framework
The rights underpinning youth-led protests are protected under core international human rights instruments that form the bedrock of democratic governance. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) guarantees freedom of assembly (Article 21), freedom of expression (Article 19), and protects the inherent right to life (Article 6). These protections are further elaborated in regional frameworks including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) and the American Convention on Human Rights. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, while specifically addressing children, underscores the principle of youth participation in decisions affecting their lives.
At the domestic level, these international norms are typically incorporated through constitutional bills of rights that mirror ICCPR protections. However, as recent protests have demonstrated, significant gaps exist between formal legal protections and their implementation during public order operations. The legal test of proportionality in restricting rights especially through digital shutdowns or use of lethal force has emerged as a central battleground in these conflicts, with governments frequently invoking public order and national security rationales that young activists challenge as pre-textual.
Crucially, these rights are not absolute but are subject to limitations. However, international law imposes a strict three-part test for any restriction: it must be (1) provided by law; (2) in pursuit of a legitimate aim (e.g., national security, public order, protection of the rights of others); and (3) necessary and proportionate in a democratic society. It is the state’s systemic failure to meet this third criterion, proportionality,that forms the locus of the current legal challenge.
Jurisdictional Case Studies & Comparative Analysis
Kenya
The 2024 #RejectFinanceBill demonstrations revived constitutional debates on state violence. Police responded with live ammunition, killing at least 40 protesters according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR, July 2024). Legal commentators invoked Articles 26, 33, 37, and 238 of the Constitution, arguing that lethal force against unarmed protesters violated the Sixth Schedule to the National Police Service Act requiring proportionality. Earlier jurisprudence of CORD v Inspector General [2015] eKLR, had affirmed state duties to facilitate peaceful assembly, yet enforcement remains elusive.
The key legal issue is one of accountability: will the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) and the courts successfully prosecute officers for extrajudicial killings (EJKs) captured on camera?
Uganda
Gen Z protests in Uganda have been repeatedly curtailed through the Public Order Management Act 2013. The arrest and torture of opposition MP Robert Kyagulanyi (Bobi Wine) during the 2021 elections highlighted the intersection of state violence and youth mobilisation. In Human Rights Network Uganda v Attorney General (2019), the Ugandan Constitutional Court ruled that key provisions of the Public Order Management Act (POMA) of 2013 were unconstitutional. The court found that the act, which granted excessive power to the Inspector General of Police to stop public meetings and impose penalties, infringed on the constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of assembly and association. The judgment invalidated these provisions for limiting the fundamental right to participate in political and non-political expression.
Nepal
The September 2025 protests in Nepal represent a paradigmatic case of digital native mobilization confronting state violence. The government’s decision on 4th September 2025 to shutdown 26 social media platforms, citing registration requirements, triggered mass demonstrations that quickly expanded to encompass broader grievances about corruption, nepotism, and economic exclusion. The movement employed innovative digital coordination through Discord servers with over 100,000 participants, using the platform not only for mobilization but for democratic deliberation, conducting polls that ultimately selected former Chief Justice Sushila Karki as interim prime minister. The legal questions raised are profound: Can digital platforms constitute public forums for constitutional deliberation? What legal standards should govern state use of lethal force against protesters? The indiscriminate use of live ammunition by security forces, resulting in at least 75 deaths including children, represents a clear violation of international standards on proportionality and necessity in policing assemblies.
Madagascar
In Madagascar, youth-led protests erupted in September 2025 over water shortages and rolling blackouts in one of Africa’s poorest nations, quickly evolving into demands for systemic reform and the resignation of President Andry Rajoelina. The government’s response resulted in at least 22 fatalities according to UN reports, though official figures disputed this accounting. The movement, coordinated under the banner ‘Gen Z Mada’ utilized Facebook and TikTok for initial organization before partnering with traditional civil society and trade unions. The legal significance lies in the movement’s rapid transition from single-issue complaints to systemic demands, illustrating how economic rights claims can transform into fundamental constitutional challenges when governments are perceived as unresponsive to youth concerns.
Bangladesh
The 2024 ouster of Sheikh Hasina following student-led protests represents another instance of digital mobilization culminating in political transition . The movement emerged from longstanding grievances over corruption and economic mismanagement, with digital platforms enabling rapid coordination across university campuses and urban centers. The legal aftermath has proven complex, with the caretaker administration under Muhammad Yunus struggling to establish stability, illustrating the challenges of transitional governance following youth-driven political upheaval.
Morocco
The ‘GenZ 212’ movement in Morocco, named for the country’s international dialing code, mobilized primarily students and unemployed graduates to demand reforms in healthcare, education, and social justice. The protests were triggered by tragic deaths of pregnant women following routine C-sections in Agadir, highlighting a crumbling healthcare system while the government invested billions in 2030 World Cup infrastructure. The movement grew exponentially through an anonymous Discord server that expanded from 3,000 to over 130,000 members in days, exemplifying how digital tools enable rapid scaling of dissent. The Moroccan government responded with arrests and force, reflecting a regional pattern of digital repression combined with physical suppression.
Thailand
The long-running (2020–2025) youth-led pro-democracy movement has been systematically repressed using the Criminal Code, specifically Article 112 (lèse-majesté). This law, carrying a 3–15 year sentence for insulting the monarchy, has been deployed against hundreds of activists, including minors like Thanalop “Yok” Phalanchai. This raises a direct conflict between domestic law and Thailand’s obligations under ICCPR Article 19 .
Comparative Insight
Across these jurisdictions, a common narrative emerges: constitutional text promises expansive freedoms, but executive practice constrains them. The judiciary’s capacity and willingness to enforce rights determine whether protest movements achieve legal vindication or suppression. Where courts such as Kenya’s or South Africa’s assert independence, constitutionalism gains resilience; where deference prevails, tyranny endures.
Legal Implications
Accountability for State Violence
The proliferation of lethal force against young protesters represents one of the most urgent legal challenges emerging from these movements. In Nepal, at least 34 protesters died from gunshot wounds, many with fatal injuries to head and torso indicating targeted fire rather than crowd dispersion. International human rights law strictly limits the use of firearms in policing assemblies, permitting them only ‘in self-defense or defense of others against imminent threat of death or serious injury’. The widespread violation of these standards demands robust accountability mechanisms, including independent judicial inquiries and reforms to police rules of engagement.
In Kenya and Bangladesh, the sheer volume of digital evidence of EJKs and brutality creates an unprecedented legal imperative for accountability. The core implication is whether existing domestic mechanisms (like Kenya’s IPOA) or new ad-hoc bodies (like in Bangladesh) can overcome political impunity and secure convictions.
Extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances accompanying these protests violate Article 6 ICCPR (right to life) and Article 4 ACHPR. Domestic laws in Kenya and Bangladesh require prompt, impartial investigations, yet prosecutions are rare. The Kenya Police Service Act 2011, s 61 mandates use of force only when strictly unavoidable. Nonetheless, security agencies operate with de facto immunity. The lack of witness protection and weak prosecutorial independence perpetuate impunity.
Digital Repression and Constitutional Rights
The weaponization of internet shutdowns and social media bans has emerged as a preferred tactic for disrupting youth mobilizations, create information blackouts to hide atrocities. Nepal’s sweeping ban on 26 platforms, Morocco’s disruption of digital organizing, and similar measures across East Africa represent a fundamental challenge to freedom of expression and assembly in the digital age. These measures often violate constitutional protections and frequently fail the proportionality test under international law, particularly when implemented without transparency, time limitation, or judicial oversight.
Vague laws (Tanzania’s Cybercrimes Act), draconian security laws (Thailand’s Art 112), and surveillance (Madagascar) are used to criminalise dissent before it reaches the streets.
Emergency Powers and Rule of Law
The invocation of emergency or public-order statutes to suppress protest frequently exceeds constitutional limits. Under Article 24 of Kenya’s Constitution, limitations must be reasonable and justifiable in a democratic society. Similarly, Article 4 ICCPR permits derogation only in times of genuine emergency threatening the life of the nation, and even then, rights such as life and freedom from torture are non-derogable. The broad, routine application of emergency decrees undermines this principle and erodes judicial scrutiny.
Role of Courts, Oversight Bodies and Regional Mechanisms
Judicial responses to these conflicts have varied widely, reflecting both institutional independence and political pressures. In some jurisdictions, courts have served as bulwarks against digital repression, striking down internet shutdowns and social media bans as disproportionate infringements on fundamental rights. Elsewhere, judiciary has been complicit in legitimizing emergency measures and immunizing state violence from accountability.
National human rights commissions have played pivotal investigative roles in some contexts, though their effectiveness often depends on political independence and resource allocation. The Nepal National Human Rights Commission’s call for restraint during the September 2025 protests exemplified this potential, though such interventions frequently prove insufficient against determined state violence.
Regional mechanisms including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and UN special procedures have increasingly addressed digital rights and protest-related violence, though their recommendations often suffer from implementation gaps. The emerging jurisprudence of international courts on climate change, led in part by youth petitioners, offers potential analogies for future accountability mechanisms for state violence against protesters.
National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) and police oversight bodies (like IPOA) are the principal domestic avenues for redress. However, their efficacy is often crippled by executive interference, underfunding, or a lack of prosecutorial powers.
Gen Z Activism and Constitutional Change
Generation Z activism is distinguished by its digital-native characteristics, which are producing novel legal strategies and constitutional implications. Unlike previous generations, these movements leverage digital platforms not merely as communication tools but as infrastructure for democratic deliberation and direct action. The Nepal protests’ use of Discord for leader selection represents a potentially transformative approach to political representation outside traditional institutions.
These movements are also pioneering new forms of evidence gathering for accountability, using smartphone video, geolocation, and social media verification to document state violence in real-time. This creates both opportunities for accountability and complex legal questions regarding digital evidence preservation, chain of custody, and protection of sources from retaliation.
The transnational connectivity of these movements enables rapid cross-border learning and strategy sharing, creating what some scholars term a ‘contagion effect’ of resistance. This connectivity challenges the traditionally state-bound nature of constitutional law and creates new possibilities for transnational legal solidarity in confronting digital repression and state violence. Their resistance represents a “new constitutionalism”: one that insists that the constitution lives in streets, screens, and social networks as much as in courtrooms.
This transforms protest from a purely physical act of assembly into a hybrid, 24/7 campaign of strategic litigation, digital evidence-gathering, and global political pressure.
Recommendations
Legislative Reforms
To realign state practice with constitutional and international obligations, the following legal and institutional reforms are necessary:
Digital Rights Protection:
Enact legislation explicitly prohibiting blanket internet shutdowns and social media bans, establishing strict proportionality requirements for any digital restrictions during protests.
Police Accountability:
Reform police statutes to explicitly prohibit the use of lethal force for crowd control, incorporating international standards into domestic law with robust oversight mechanisms.
Youth Participation:
Establish statutory requirements for youth consultation in legislative processes affecting digital rights, education, employment, and environmental policy.
Judicial Measures
Evidentiary Standards:
Develop progressive evidentiary standards for digital evidence of state violence, including provisions for anonymous testimony and video verification. Courts should adopt clear procedural rules for authentication and admissibility of digital media evidence, protecting both reliability and privacy.
Institutional Innovations
Digital Protection Units:
Establish independent digital protection units to provide technical support to activists facing surveillance and hacking attempts.
Protest Oversight Commissions:
Create independent protest oversight commissions with authority to monitor police conduct and investigate allegations of excessive force. Governments must fully fund and grant independent prosecutorial authority to bodies like Kenya’s IPOA and NHRIs to end impunity for security forces.
International Accountability:
Strengthen cross-border accountability mechanisms, including sanctions regimes targeting officials responsible for severe violence against protesters.
Conclusion
The global surge of Generation Z-led movements represents not merely a political phenomenon but a transformative force in constitutional law and practice. Through their digital-native strategies, these young activists are functioning as ‘new constitutionalists’ challenging oppressive practices and simultaneously shaping new legal paradigms for assembly, expression, and accountability. The legal implications are profound, demanding reassessment of fundamental questions about the boundaries of legitimate protest, the limits of state power, and the very nature of democratic participation in the digital age. The digital generation wields smartphones as instruments of constitutional enforcement, transforming protest into a living expression of the rule of law.
These Generation uses technology to expose the delta between the de jure protections on paper and the de facto violence on the street. The legal implications are clear: the existing frameworks for accountability are failing. If the law is to remain a credible guarantor of rights against arbitrary power, it must adapt to the digital age and subordinate state security claims to the fundamental principles of necessity, proportionality, and human dignity. These “New Constitutionalists” are not merely demanding policy changes; they are demanding that states adhere to their own constitutional and international legal bargains.
Table of Cases and Instruments
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966)
African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981)
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
Government of Nepal, Social Media Ban Order (4 September 2025)
Nepal National Human Rights Commission, Statement on Protest Violence (8 September 2025)
