A large-scale Internet blackout swept across Afghanistan on September 29, just weeks after the ruling Taliban authorities started severing fiber-optic cables in multiple provinces, leading to localized outages.
Many international and local news outlets reporting from Afghanistan have been affected by the massive outage, including RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi and Radio Mashaal.
“Afghanistan is now in the midst of a total Internet blackout as Taliban authorities move to implement morality measures, with multiple networks disconnected through the morning,” Internet governance watchdog Netblocks said.
The Taliban’s leadership has not publicly commented on the nationwide shutdown and it was not clear how long it would last.
On September 26, however, Haji Zahid, a local Taliban spokesperson in the northern province of Balkh, said in a post on X that the ban had been ordered by their leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, “to prevent immoral activities.”
The Taliban has used Islamic Shari’a law to justify its extremist policies. But Islamic scholars say there are no religious grounds for the group’s decision to shut down the Internet.
The Internet blockage is part of a wider crackdown on individual freedoms and the free flow of information in Afghanistan.
Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban has severely restricted the rights of Afghans, especially women, and violently cracked down on dissent.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal on September 24, US State Department’s spokeswoman Elizabeth Stickney said the US administration was closely monitoring the situation.
“These reports are very worrying and we do not see these restrictions as helping the people of Afghanistan. On the contrary, these restrictions will have a negative impact on people’s lives and the economy,” she said.
The United States and most other Western nations have refused to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government since it retook control in 2021, following the hasty withdrawal of international troops from the country.
