Afghanistan Offline: How Taliban’s Internet Blackout Fuels Authoritarian Rule

By Mohammad Reza Mirzai

Internet access is now widely seen as a basic right. In Afghanistan, however, it has become a weapon. The Taliban’s shutdown of fiber-optic networks goes beyond censorship—it is digital authoritarianism. By cutting connectivity, the regime has severed access to education, information, and commerce. Students are stranded, journalists silenced, businesses paralyzed. This is not about bandwidth; it is about power. Afghanistan is being deliberately disconnected from the world.