Taliban plunges Afghanistan into digital darkness with nationwide internet blackout, crushing women's last hope
By isabelle // 2025-10-01
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  • A near-total internet blackout has been ordered by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
  • The shutdown has paralyzed the economy and crippled vital humanitarian operations.
  • The regime vaguely justifies the action as a campaign against online immorality.
  • The blackout has severed Afghans from the world and from loved ones abroad.
  • It has destroyed online education, the last remaining hope for many women and girls.
The Taliban regime has imposed a near-total internet blackout in Afghanistan, severing a nation from the modern world and extinguishing the final flickers of hope for its most vulnerable citizens. The monitoring group NetBlocks reported a "total internet blackout" in Afghanistan, with connectivity dropping to less than 1% of normal levels. This coordinated shutdown, ordered by Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, marks the most severe digital crackdown since the group seized power in 2021. The Taliban has offered a vague justification for the blackout, framing it as a campaign against online "immoral activities," which observers say primarily refers to access to pornography. This move underscores the regime's commitment to imposing its harsh interpretation of Islamic law, regardless of the catastrophic consequences for the population. The economic impact has been immediate and severe. Banking services are frozen, businesses are paralyzed, and the country's main air hub, Kabul International Airport, has seen commercial flights canceled or marked "unknown." "We are blind without phones and the internet," said Najibullah, a 42-year-old Kabul shopkeeper. "All our business relies on mobile phones. Deliveries are arranged with phones. It’s like a holiday — everyone is at home, the economy is frozen."

The human cost of isolation

For Afghans living abroad, the blackout has created a wall of silence, cutting them off from loved ones in a country already grappling with a profound humanitarian crisis. "Since yesterday, we have had no contact with anyone," Mohammad Hadi, a 30-year-old Afghan living in India, told CNN. "There’s no way to speak, no way to know if they are safe." The United Nations mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has urged the Taliban to immediately restore access, warning that the blackout "has left Afghanistan almost completely cut off from the outside world, and risks inflicting significant harm on the Afghan people." UN officials confirmed the shutdown has crippled humanitarian operations, including aid responses to a recent deadly earthquake.

A targeted assault on women's futures

The most devastating impact, however, is on women and girls, whose rights have been systematically erased by the Taliban. Barred from schools beyond the age of 12 and excluded from most public life, many had turned to online education as their last remaining path to knowledge. "Our last hope was online education, and now even that dream has been destroyed," an Afghan student using the pseudonym Fahima Nouri told the BBC. Another student, Shakiba, said, "When I heard that the internet had been cut, the world felt dark to me." For these women, the digital blackout is the final brick in a wall of oppression, deliberately constructed to keep them uneducated and subservient. This event is a chilling case study in what happens when a government seizes absolute control over a population's access to information. The Taliban’s undisputed rule, a direct consequence of a failed withdrawal of Western power, has created a laboratory for authoritarian control. The regime now demonstrates that it can, with a single command, isolate an entire nation, crush its economy, and shatter the aspirations of its people. The silence from Afghanistan is deafening. It is the sound of liberty being extinguished, of corruption flourishing in the darkness, and of a people being severed from the global community. It stands as a harsh warning of the fragility of digital freedom and the brutal reality of life under a regime that answers to no one. The world must hear this silence for what it is: a desperate cry from a nation being pushed back into the dark ages. Sources for this article include: YnetNews.com FoxNews.com BBC.co.uk CNN.com
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