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\n Published on
\n 16\/09\/2025 – 17:57 GMT+2\n <\/p>\n
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The Taliban’s leader has banned fibre optic internet in one province of Afghanistan to “prevent immorality,” a spokesman for the administration said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
There is no longer cable internet access in the northern Balkh region by order of a “complete ban” from the leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, according to the spokesperson.<\/p>\n
It is the first time a ban of this kind has been imposed since the Taliban seized power in August 2021. <\/p>\n
It leaves government offices, the private sector, public institutions, and homes in Balkh without Wi-Fi. However, mobile data is still functional.<\/p>\n
“This measure was taken to prevent immorality, and an alternative will be built within the country for necessities,” said Haji Attaullah Zaid, a provincial government spokesman.<\/p>\n
He gave no further information, including why Balkh was chosen for the ban or if the shutdown would spread to other provinces.<\/p>\n
One Balkh resident noticed connectivity issues a few days ago at home and contacted his service provider, which said it was a technical issue that would be resolved.<\/p>\n
“Blocking the internet is beyond my comprehension in such an advanced era,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of Taliban reprisals.<\/p>\n
He said that he rarely used mobile data because it was slow and expensive.<\/p>\n
A fast and stable internet connection was also important for his work, he said, which involved dealing with people and companies located outside Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
“I might have to move from Mazar-e-Sharif (the capital of Balkh) to another province because I cannot afford the loss,” the individual said.<\/p>\n
Authorities in Afghanistan sometimes suspend the mobile phone network for security reasons, usually during religious festivals, to prevent detonations of explosive devices.<\/p>\n
Additional sources \u2022 AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 16\/09\/2025 – 17:57 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT The Taliban’s leader has banned fibre optic internet in one province…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[11213,49,48,244,72392,30586,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-148660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-internet","12":"tag-internet-ban","13":"tag-taliban","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}