What Happened
In this 2022 photo, three university students check their smartphones. In June, the Taliban announced a devices in certain sectors of society. The ripple effect is making students afraid smartphones to school. Wakil Kohsar/AFP/via hide caption
Farzana, 40, is a midwife who covers 10 villages in Moqor district of Afghanistan's Ghazni province. Until recently, worried mothers photos of newborns with rashes, swelling or skin infections decide who needed help most urgently.
Taliban began enforcing a ban on smartphones that took effect in June, Farzana stopped using her smartphone . reached through a regular phone line — a more costly option in a country where people rely heavily on WhatsApp for calls, messages, photos and urgent coordination.
"I cannot be everywhere at once," said Farzana, Afghans . "Sometimes a photo or a message helps me understand whether a mother or newborn needs urgent help."
Why It Matters
Across Afghanistan, smartphones have become part of a fragile support system. Families consult doctors remotely, arrange transport to distant clinics, send photos of wounds and symptoms, ask relatives for money, document schooling longer available in person . That fragile network threat.
Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have ordered government employees, judges, police and members of the military smartphones under a directive that took effect June 16. The order threatens violators with confiscation, destruction of their devices and punishment ( specified).
feature phones — with calling and texting options screen recording capabilities — is permitted.
private phone ownership by ordinary Afghan civilians. provinces, restrictions have already moved beyond government offices and into hospitals, schools and universities, raising policy could become broader limits on public smartphone use.
What Comes Next
The restrictions began as a verbal order from Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada formalized in a military court directive circulated , police commanders and intelligence chiefs across the country's eight administrative zones. The directive says anyone caught using a smartphone device smashed and face "legal and sharia punishment." Exemptions require a written decree from Akhundzada himself. A separate court order covers "all officials of the military and civilian institutions, including judges."
The Taliban have also created monitoring lists recording employees' names, positions, workplaces, mobile carriers and phone numbers. Security officials have instructed members to destroy their own smartphones and submit proof on a designated form.
One government employee in Herat, who requested retaliation by the Taliban, says phone restrictions had quietly office for months before effect nationally. colleagues resisted, he said, officials confiscated and smashed their phones.
The timing followed protests , after Taliban forces arrested accused of "improper hijab" — not meeting covering prescribed manner and not wearing makeup. Witnesses said Taliban forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing person. shooting spread online before the Taliban could contain it.
The Taliban administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Taliban smartphones. After a ban was announced, they're using feature phones — "dumb phones" — a screen and are designed . This Taliban administrator a Department of Information and Culture building in Kandahar. Sanaullah Seiam/AFP/via hide caption
The restrictions have reached deeply into education, where phones communication students study, save lessons, contact teachers and stay connected to their families.
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