"At 7pm, the scheduled start time, her laptop screen stayed black. The family's wifi, like the wireless internet across her neighbourhood, had gone and with it, her only chance to continue her education. These online classes were my only source of hope, says Marjaneh, speaking from Afghanistan through a crackling phone connection. I thought, when they [Taliban] closed schools at least they wouldn't cut the internet, but now that has been taken away too."
"Last Monday, the Taliban started shutting down Afghanistan's fibre-optic internet across the northern provinces. On 15 September, the connection to Balkh province was cut and since then access to broadband internet has also been closed to Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Nimroz, Zabul, Baghlan, Takhar, Kunduz, Badakhshan, Herat and Parwan. The move has been taken, according to the Taliban's supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, to prevent immorality, and there are now fears that this is the first step towards a total shutdown of internet access for ordinary Afghans."
Taliban authorities have begun cutting fibre-optic broadband across multiple Afghan provinces, severing neighbourhood wifi and disrupting online education. Broadband access to Balkh, Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Nimroz, Zabul, Baghlan, Takhar, Kunduz, Badakhshan, Herat and Parwan has been closed, with leaders citing prevention of immorality and raising fears of a total internet shutdown. The measures coincide with the fourth anniversary of the ban on girls attending secondary school and undermine online schools that served as essential lifelines. Girls face expensive, patchy mobile data as the only alternative, with additional local restrictions in Kandahar preventing girls from purchasing mobile data without a male relative.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]