Taliban plunges Afghanistan into 'total internet blackout' as it vows to 'prevent immorality'

The Taliban government has been severing fibre-optic internet connections across several provinces in Afghanistan in recent weeks as part of what it describes as a drive to “prevent immorality”.

The Islamic fundamentalist group, which took control of the country when America pulled out in 2021, gradually weakened mobile phone signal and internet until connectivity hit less than 1 per cent on Monday.

They have remained shut down on Tuesday in a "total internet blackout", according to the internet watchdog NetBlocks.

"The incident is likely to severely limit the public's ability to contact the outside world," the organisation said.

Authorities reportedly gave a one-week deadline for the shutdown of 3G and 4G internet services for mobile phones ahead of the outage.

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It marks the first time the Taliban government has cut communications across the whole country, having previously blocked access to social media or restricted access to the internet in various areas.

Unama, the UN mission to Afghanistan, has warned the blackout “risks inflicting significant harm on the Afghan people, including by threatening economic stability and exacerbating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises”.

The agency urged the Taliban government to immediately restore connectivity across the country.

Kabul has reportedly experienced the sharpest drop in internet connectivity, with the western city of Herat and Kandahar in the south also badly impacted.

At least five flights scheduled to arrive at or depart from Kabul airport on Tuesday were cancelled, according to data from flight tracking site Flightradar24.

Satellite TV broadcasts of Afghan media outlets and international news agencies have also been affected, as have hospitals and government and private offices.

It comes as the Taliban continues to impose additional restrictions on individual freedoms, particularly on women, in line with their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.

Woman have now reported feeling even more "helpless" amid the communication outage.

"We dreamed of finishing our education and helping our father financially, but now... we all sit at home doing nothing," one Afghan woman has quoted as saying.

In July, the International Crime Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for the Taliban's 'top leaders' for the persecution of women and girls.

It said there were "reasonable grounds" to believe two leaders of the Taliban have enforced a number of restrictions on women, including barring them from many jobs,

It has also prevented girls over 12 from accessing education.

In response, the Taliban said it doesn't recognise the ICC, calling the warrant "a clear act of hostility" and an "insult to the beliefs of Muslims around the world".

It says it respects women's rights in line with its interpretation of Islamic law.