Afghanistan: Taliban imposes nationwide communications blackout, cutting off millions from the outside world
Credit: Jan Chipcase (CC BY-SA 3.0)
‘The ongoing internet shutdown is a grave escalation of the Taliban’s longstanding efforts to silence any form of expression it disagrees with. By isolating Afghanistan from the outside world and denying millions the ability to communicate and engage in online expression, the Taliban risks plunging the country into darkness. This shutdown must be reversed immediately’, said Romana Cacchioli, Executive Director of PEN International.
30 September 2025: Afghanistan is reportedly experiencing a nationwide internet and telecommunications blackout, denying millions the ability to communicate online or by phone. PEN International calls for the immediate reversal of the shutdown.
The nationwide blackout is the culmination of a two-week escalation by the Taliban, which initially imposed a ban on fibre-optic internet access across five provinces in northern Afghanistan on 15 September 2025, following an order by the group’s leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada. According to the Taliban leader’s decree, the ban was allegedly implemented in order to ‘prevent immorality’, and as part of a broader effort by the Taliban to counter what it views as ‘corrupt speech’.
In recent days, reports have emerged that fibre-optic internet shutdowns had spread to over 10 of the country’s 34 provinces, including Mazar-e-Sharif and in Herat, Afghanistan’s third largest city with a population of almost 600,000. On 29 September 2025, the Taliban’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology ordered ISPs to shut down fibre-optic internet throughout Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul. At the time of writing, reports are emerging that a nationwide shutdown has been implemented.
Fibre-optic internet provides a relatively cheap and stable source of high speed internet that is crucial for the provision of online education and access to diaspora media outlets, which Afghans have increasingly relied upon following the Taliban’s decimation of the country’s domestic media landscape. The internet shutdown has disrupted millions of Afghans and will have a knock-on effect across the country’s infrastructure, leading to reports that flights have also been grounded.
The all-encompassing scope of the communications blackout represents a terrible escalation of the Taliban’s intent to crush freedom of expression in the country. The last four years of Taliban rule have been marked by an unrelenting stream of edicts curtailing any form of expression deemed incompatible with the Taliban’s deeply intolerant ideology. Women and girls have been subjected to all-encompassing restrictions curtailing every aspect of their lives, amounting to what UN experts refer to as a state of gender apartheid. For many, the internet has served as a virtual refuge and a vital lifeline to the outside world, providing women and girls with the ability to continue their education and express themselves in a manner no longer possible offline.
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