When Afghanistan lost all internet access last Monday, Rukhshana Media reporter Hania Forootan* ventured out to check on friends and see how people were being affected. What she saw in the streets of Kabul filled her with anxiety.
The white-uniformed enforcers of the Taliban’s feared Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice were out in large numbers. “Every time I passed by them, my breath caught in my chest. I kept thinking—if they start arresting girls again, how will their families even know?” said Forootan.
“[Then] I saw a girl running, with armed fighters chasing her. One of them shouted, ‘Stop! Stop or I’ll shoot!”
Forootan, who has reported for Rukhshana Media in Kabul for two years and whose true identity we are concealing for her protection, saw several young women forced into a white van by the men in white coats. Witnesses told her several other young women were detained.
Detentions of young women, usually for perceived violations of the strict dress code the Taliban imposes on women, have become common in the years since the group took over Afghanistan and imposed a slew of increasingly draconian restrictions. But for Forootan, the thought that these young women could disappear without being able to tell anyone what had happened was particularly chilling.
The Taliban has given no official reason for the internet blackout, which lasted for two days and brought down phone connections and temporarily halted all flights into and out of Kabul’s international airport, cutting the country off entirely.
Internet restrictions began in early September and were justified as a measure to “prevent moral corruption”, but it was not until the end of the month that the blackout went nationwide. There have been reports that the order came from the Taliban’s supreme leader and was opposed by many in the regime, but these have not been confirmed.
Rukhshana’s reporters on the ground bore witness to the fear and silence that ensued, as hospitals struggled to operate normally and government offices ground to a halt.
“All files and test results are stored online. Without the internet, we are half-paralysed,” Hania recalled a nurse at a hospital in the capital telling her.
Journalist Imran Ali* was also in Kabul as events unfolded, and described the “anxious and fearful” mood in the city as rumours spread.
“Government employees weren’t at their posts. Taliban guards told visitors at public offices—especially those at the electronic ID department—to go home,” said Muzhda Mohammadi*, Rukhshana Media’s reporter in the western city of Herat. “People waiting there said Afghanistan had gone back decades.”
In northern Afghanistan, reporter Zeba Balkhi* recalls how the shutdown caused concern, especially among women and girls whose work and studies depend on online access.
“Everywhere—in cars, on the streets—people were talking about their worries,” she said, recalling how a neighbour suffered a heart attack believing she might never again be able to contact her daughter, who lives abroad.
Outside Afghanistan, there was also concern. UNAMA, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said the blackout had “virtually cut Afghanistan off from the outside world”. The Toronto-based Free Speech Centre said the “sweeping censorship is more than a restriction of access, it is a direct assault on fundamental freedoms”.
For Forootan, the internet outage was an impediment to doing her job, but it was also much more than that. It brought a bitter reminder of the day four years ago when the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan.
“For me—and for many others—it wasn’t just a network outage. It was two days of standing still under a heavy shadow that paralysed life and shook what little hope remained,” she said.
“You couldn’t make a call, send a message, or get any news. At that moment, the bitter memory of August 15 2021, came rushing back—it felt as if the city had fallen all over again.”
* The names of Rukhshana Media journalists have been changed for their safety
