Internet shutdowns hit several provinces of Afghanistan this week in an apparent attempt by the country’s authorities to limit its use and, in at least one province, the diffusion of content deemed immoral, according to government officials.
Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban and of Afghanistan since 2021, instructed governors this month to cut off Wi-Fi access in their provinces to curb the “misuse of the internet,” according to Mahmood Ezam, a spokesman for the governor of Kandahar Province.
“Fiber internet was shut down by order of the Supreme Leader,” Mr. Ezam said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, referring to Sheikh Haibatullah.
He did not elaborate on what was meant by misuse. But Wi-Fi was also suspended — based on the same order — in the northern province of Balkh to prevent the diffusion of “immoral acts,” a provincial spokesman there said on X.
Sediqullah Quraishi, director of information in Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan, said that the connection also stopped working there from Wednesday.
The national government did not respond to requests for comment.
Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, called the ban in Balkh Province “absurd and unwise,” and its justification “insulting.”
“It will damage not only the province’s economy, but the country’s prospects as a whole,” Mr. Khalilzad, who met with Afghanistan’s foreign minister last week in the capital of Kabul to discuss the release of American hostages, said on X.
An administration official and a telecommunications official, both speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation, confirmed that the order had come from Sheikh Haibatullah, who is based in Kandahar, and had been conveyed to governors this month. Mobile internet was still accessible, although connectivity remains scarce in large swathes of the country.
Provincial and national officials from the Taliban-led administration have in recent weeks imposed broad restrictions on mass communications and individual freedoms on religious grounds. YouTubers have been banned from posting content; television channels have been ordered not to show faces in a growing number of provinces; and Afghan women working from United Nations agencies have been prevented from entering U.N. compounds in Kabul.
Internet traffic began to drop on Monday in at least seven of 34 provinces, according to traffic data complied by Access Now, a global digital rights group, though it was unclear if that was connected to the shutdown order.
The internet shutdown, the first since the Taliban took power in 2021, threatens to throw Afghanistan’s battered economy further into disarray, with its immediate effects so biting that some provincial officials and business owners urged the authorities to find an alternative.
“We’re in the 21st century and instead of making progress, unfortunately we go back,” said Israr Kamal, a snack trader in Kandahar who sells products online. “If the government wants to be an active partner of the world, they shouldn’t impose such restrictions on the people and society.”
Mr. Ezam, the provincial spokesman in Kandahar, said that officials there complained about the impact of the shutdown in a meeting with the governor on Wednesday. He added that the authorities were trying to come up with alternatives, such as granting limited access to essential government agencies and administrations.
Safiullah Padshah and Yaqoob Akbary contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Elian Peltier is an international correspondent for The Times, covering Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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