Islamabad: The Taliban’s restrictions on the internet and social media are violating the rights of Afghans, United Nations experts said Friday, following severe disruption to telecom services during the past few weeks.
Afghanistan experienced a 48-hour internet blackout from Sept 29 that coincided with a morality drive imposed by the Taliban leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, who had earlier ordered fibre-optic services to be cut in several provinces.
Authorities confirmed the fibre-optic ban, but did not comment on the two-day outage. Although connectivity was largely restored on Oct 1, UN experts, including the special
rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said the Taliban have restricted access to popular social media platforms since Oct 7.
“These new restrictions, although more filtered than blanket at this stage, can be understood as part of a wider and deliberate strategy to control public discourse and regulate societal conduct,” the UN team
of experts warned.