Restricting Internet Access Is the Taliban’s Latest Ploy to Cut off Afghanistan’s Most Vulnerable

Natalie Gonnella-Platts and Jessica Ludwig

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Four years into their totalitarian hold on Afghanistan, the Taliban continue to prove that their tyranny has no limits.

Their latest actions – restricting online content and obstructing internet access for communities across the country – threaten to have catastrophic consequences for Afghanistan’s women, children, and other persecuted communities. The move is the latest on a lengthy list of human rights abuses and global security challenges.

The United States is right to be concerned about the growing security threat emanating from the region, especially considering Afghanistan’s strategic location within Central Asia. But American leaders could have far greater impact on advancing national security interests if, instead of focusing on negotiating with Taliban officials and reacquiring Bagram air base, they looked to embolden Afghanistan’s greatest resource: its people.

To do this, U.S. and global leaders should take the long overdue action of leveraging accountability mechanisms – like expanding targeted sanctions against Taliban leaders – and mobilizing support for Afghan-led efforts that directly challenge the Taliban’s suffocation of personal freedoms.

Tremendous individuals and organizations have resisted, often through everyday actions now criminalized in the Taliban’s version of Afghanistan. Critical thinking, constructive discourse, freedom of expression, secular education, and independent media have been essentially outlawed under Taliban rule.

Independent media platforms have persisted in documenting Taliban atrocities, including the hunting, torturing, and killing of former government officials, Afghan security forces, journalists, educators, and advocates. Activists and data collectors have documented Taliban leaders’ abuses like pilfering humanitarian aid, promoting jihadi propaganda, and providing refuge to terrorists.

Educators and entrepreneurs have created underground schools, online learning platforms, and e-businesses to nurture hope, opportunity, and resilience amid unimaginable persecution and the callous subjugation and exclusion from society of female citizens and ethnic and religious minorities. Women-led media have ensured that stories of women and girls are still told.