Taliban internet and social media restrictions violate Afghan rights, U.N. experts say

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 fiber-optic services to be cut in several provinces.

Authorities confirmed the fiber-optic ban, but did not comment on the two-day outage.

Although connectivity was largely restored on Oct. 1, U.N. 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.

Earlier this week, the monitoring group Netblocks reported that Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat were down across multiple providers in Afghanistan.

“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 U.N. team of experts warned.

They called on authorities to reinstate full access and refrain from further restrictions that violated civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

Shutdowns and restrictions further isolated Afghans from the global community and disconnected them from family members abroad who provide critical support, including through remittances, the experts said.

The experts are appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. They work on a voluntary basis and serve in an individual capacity.

The Taliban government did not immediately comment on Friday.