{"id":180129,"date":"2025-09-30T13:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T13:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180129\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T13:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T13:43:10","slug":"afghanistan-blind-without-phones-and-internet-on-second-day-of-telecoms-blackout-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/180129\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan \u2018blind without phones and internet\u2019 on second day of telecoms blackout | Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Afghans are living under a near-complete communications blackout after Taliban<\/a> authorities cut internet and mobile phone services for a second day as part of an unprecedented country-wide crackdown.<\/p>\n

The former insurgents, who retook control of Afghanistan in 2021, began gradual restrictions on internet access earlier this month<\/a>. The measures also affect telephone lines, as they are often routed over the internet.<\/p>\n

High-speed connections to some provinces were cut in mid-September to \u201cprevent immorality\u201d<\/a>, on the orders of the supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada.<\/p>\n

On Monday night, mobile phone signal and internet service gradually weakened nationwide<\/a> until connectivity was less than 1% of ordinary levels, according to the internet watchdog NetBlocks. On Tuesday, internet and telephone services continued to be down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are blind without phones and internet,\u201d said Najibullah, a 42-year-old shopkeeper in Kabul. \u201cAll our business relies on mobiles. The deliveries are with mobiles. It\u2019s like a holiday; everyone is at home. The market is totally frozen.\u201d<\/p>\n

While officials have previously blocked access to social media or restricted access to the internet, it was the first time the Taliban government had cut communications across the whole country.<\/p>\n

The administration offered no immediate explanation for the blackout, although in recent weeks it has voiced concern about pornography online. Rights groups say the regime is instead trying to disconnect Afghans from the world to suppress the population.<\/p>\n

Fereshta Abbasi, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who focuses on Afghanistan<\/a>, said cutting off access to the internet deprived millions of Afghans of their livelihoods and fundamental rights to education, healthcare and access to information. \u201cThe Taliban,\u201d she said, \u201cshould drop its excuses about morality and instead focus on how these shutdowns are causing irreversible harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UN mission to Afghanistan, Unama, warned the disconnection \u201crisks inflicting significant harm on the Afghan people, including by threatening economic stability and exacerbating one of the world\u2019s worst humanitarian crises\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Taliban regime has enforced strict restrictions on women and freedom of expression, including purging books written by women from the country\u2019s universities, blocking girls from studying and women from working<\/a>, and even banning chess, which it said encouraged gambling.<\/p>\n

In the minutes before Monday\u2019s blackout happened, a government official warned the Agence France-Presse news agency that the fibre-optic network would be cut, also affecting mobile phone services.<\/p>\n

Men trying to connect their smart TV to the internet amid the telecom shutdown in Kabul. Photograph: Sayed Hassib\/Reuters<\/p>\n

\u201cEight to nine thousand telecommunications pillars\u201d would be shut down, he said, adding that the blackout would last \u201cuntil further notice\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t any other way or system to communicate \u2026 The banking sector, customs, everything across the country will be affected,\u201d said the official, who asked not to be named.<\/p>\n

The Taliban leader reportedly ignored warnings from some officials earlier this month about the economic fallout of cutting the internet, and ordered authorities to press ahead with a nationwide ban.<\/p>\n

A UN source said: \u201cOperations are severely impacted, falling back to radio communications and limited satellite links.\u201d<\/p>\n

On 16 September, the Balkh provincial spokesperson Attaullah Zaid said the ban had come from the Taliban leader\u2019s orders. \u201cThis measure was taken to prevent vice, and alternative options will be put in place across the country to meet connectivity needs,\u201d he wrote on social media.<\/p>\n

At the time, the same restrictions were applied in the northern provinces of Badakhshan and Takhar, as well as in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, Nangarhar in the east and the central province of Uruzgan.<\/p>\n

NetBlocks, which monitors cybersecurity and internet governance, said the blackout appeared \u201cconsistent with the intentional disconnection of service\u201d.<\/p>\n

Telephone services are often routed over the internet, sharing the same fibre-optic lines, especially in countries with limited telecoms infrastructure.In 2024, Kabul had touted the 9,350km (5,800-mile) national fibre-optic network \u2013 largely built by former US-backed governments \u2013 as a \u201cpriority\u201d to bring the country closer to the rest of the world and lift it out of poverty.<\/p>\n

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Afghans are living under a near-complete communications blackout after Taliban authorities cut internet and mobile phone services for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[64,63,237,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-180129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-internet","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}