Cell phone and internet services were restored in Afghanistan on October 1 two days after the Taliban imposed a nationwide shutdown of telecommunications, a move that largely cut off the country from the rest of the world.
A Taliban spokesman attributed the outage to the deterioration of old fiber optic cables, saying they needed to be replaced. The hard-line Islamist group denied that it had shut down the Internet, but some Taliban leaders had previously said they blocked the Internet to prevent users from viewing pornography.
The spokesman's comments were the first from the Taliban government since high-speed Internet services were shut down on September 29. Mobile phone networks, which share the same system, were also mostly shut down.
The shutdown sparked chaos in Afghanistan, disrupting flights and cutting people off from banking and e-commerce systems as well as online jobs and schools.
By late afternoon on October 1 residents in Kabul and other cities said their phone services had come back to life, and Internet access was restored, according to companies providing the service.
The blackout caused hardships and financial losses for ordinary Afghans, who are already experiencing economic strife amid rising poverty, unemployment, and hunger.
“We had no warning that the Internet would be shut down,” said a female teacher living in Hairatan, a town in northern Afghanistan near the border with Uzbekistan. “It’s not just the Internet, but mobile phone signal.”
The woman, who spoke to RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said local SIM cards had been deactivated, and she had purchased an Uzbek SIM card.
The communications blackout came weeks after the Taliban started blocking access to fiber-optic Internet in several provinces.
The group said that move was intended to prevent “immorality,” with the Taliban previously voicing concern over pornography and online intimacy between men and women.
But critics have said the decision is part of a wider crackdown on individual freedoms and the free flow of information.
Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban has severely restricted the rights of Afghans, especially women, and violently cracked down on dissent.
The Taliban has used its own interpretation of Islamic Shari’a law to justify its extremist policies. But Islamic scholars say there is no religious grounds for the group’s decision to shut down the Internet.
'Many Problems'
The communications blackout affected ordinary Afghans, private businesses, and government offices and caused challenges for thousands of Afghans who are outside the country.
A resident of the northeastern province of Badakhshan told Radio Azadi that the shutdown caused people “many problems.”
“It’s had a lot of negative effects on our lives,” said the man, who asked not to be named. “People aren’t able to work or stay connected with their families.”
The UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in a September 30 statement called on the Taliban to immediately and fully restore nationwide Internet and telecommunications access.
“The cut in access has left Afghanistan almost completely cut off from the outside world, and risks inflicting significant harm on the Afghan people, including by threatening economic stability and exacerbating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.”
Ishaq Atmar, an Afghan analyst based in Germany, said the communication shutdown would have wide-ranging consequences.
“It’s a huge loss for both the people of Afghanistan and the economy of this country,” he told Radio Azadi. “If you cut off the Internet, it means that you have cut off life because nothing is possible without the Internet.”
The Internet has been a lifeline for Afghan women, many of whom lost their right to work and study following a Taliban ban in 2022.
Media watchdogs condemned the Internet ban as an attempt to stop the free flow of information.
