In this photo from 2022, three university students check their smartphones. In June, the Taliban announced a ban on the devices in some sectors of society. Students are afraid to bring their smartphones to school because of the ripple effect.

Farzana, 40, is a midwife who covers 10 villages in the Mokor district in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. Until recently, worried mothers would often send him photos of newborns with rashes, swelling or skin infections so he could decide who needed immediate help.

But since the Taliban began banning smartphones in June, Farzana says she has stopped using her smartphone out of fear. It can now only be reached through a regular phone line – a more expensive option in a country where people rely heavily on WhatsApp for calls, messages, photos and instant coordination.

“I can’t be everywhere at the same time,” said Farzana, who like many Afghans goes by one name. “Sometimes a photo or message helps me understand if the mother or the newborn needs immediate help.”

Across Afghanistan, smartphones have become part of a fragile aid system. Families use them to consult doctors remotely, arrange transportation to distant clinics, send photographs of wounds and symptoms, solicit money from relatives, document abuse, and access schooling that is no longer available in person for many girls and women. That delicate network is now in danger.

demolished and seized

Taliban officials in Afghanistan have ordered government employees, judges, police and members of the military to stop using smartphones under a directive effective June 16. The order threatens violators with confiscation, destruction of their equipment, and unspecified punishment.

The use of phones known as ‘feature phones’ is permitted – these have calling and texting options but no touch screen and no photo or recording capabilities.

The ban does not yet apply to private phone ownership by ordinary Afghan citizens. But in some provinces, the restrictions have already extended beyond government offices to hospitals, schools and universities, raising fears that the policy could become an early test for broader limits on public smartphone use.

The restrictions began as a verbal order from Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and were later formalised in a military court directive circulated to court chiefs, police commanders and intelligence chiefs in the country’s eight administrative regions. The directive states that anyone caught using a smartphone will have the device dismantled and will face “legal and Sharia punishment.” Exemption requires a written decree from Akhundzada himself. A separate court order applies to “all officials of the military and civilian institutions, including judges.”

The Taliban also created surveillance lists recording names, positions, workplaces, mobile carriers and phone numbers of employees. Security officials have instructed members to destroy their smartphones and submit evidence on a specified form.

A government employee in Herat, who requested that NPR not use her name out of fear of retaliation by the Taliban, says the phone ban had been quietly in place in her office for months before the June order took effect nationally. When he and his colleagues protested, officials confiscated and broke their phones, he said.

A possible trigger for the ban

The timing of the order came after protests in Herat in early June, when Taliban forces arrested women and girls on charges of “improper hijab,” which means failing to meet the dress code of covering the face and body in the prescribed manner and not wearing makeup. Witnesses said Taliban forces fired on the protesters, killing at least one person. Video of the shooting spread online even before the Taliban could control it.

The Taliban administration did not respond to a request for comment.

Taliban employees relied on smartphones. Since the ban was announced, they have been using feature phones – also known as “dumb phones” – that do not have screens and are designed for calls and texts. This Taliban administrator is using such phones in the Department of Information and Culture building in Kandahar.

The restrictions reach deep into education, where phones are not only a means of communication but also part of how students study, save lessons, contact teachers and stay connected with their families.

In Kandahar province, an 18-year-old madrasa student named Baryalai, who requested anonymity due to fears of Taliban reprisals, said his school has completely transformed. “Now there is a complete ban,” he said. “Nobody brings a smartphone anymore.”

Omar Istanikzai, 30, a teacher at the same school, said he had left his phone at home that morning without telling him. He said, “I think it is a good decision because it allows students to focus more on their studies.”

Others see the policy very differently.

How are schools responding?

At Kabul University, the leadership council ordered a complete smartphone ban for professors, staff and students from June 21. The decision was announced at an Academic Council meeting, where members were not allowed to ask questions. At Herat University, notices posted at the entrance warn that no one can enter with smartphones, and the ban extends to student dormitories, where Wi-Fi service has also been suspended. In Baghlan province, students carrying smartphones have been turned away from the university gate.

A student at Kabul University said the restrictions have also made it difficult for pupils to stay in touch with their families during the emergency. He requested that his name not be used because he has been targeted by the Taliban in the past and he fears retaliation if they can identify him and he speaks out. His family lives in Badakhshan province, he said, and after a security incident involving students on July 4, his mother was nervous because she could not easily reach them.

“She was distressed,” he said. “If something happens, our families need to know if we are safe. Without our phones, we are cut off from them.”

For many students, the phone is a classroom and a library. They use it to take pictures of texts written on the board, receive assignments, download books, search educational materials, use dictionaries, and contact instructors outside of the classroom. For girls and women barred from secondary school and university, this may be one of the last ways to continue studying privately.

In Kandahar, the provincial education department said its own ban on students and teachers was rooted in a “Sharia perspective” and warned that smartphones threatened “the destruction of future generations.” The Taliban’s higher education minister has called smartphones “one of the three main enemies of Muslims” and last October restricted their use on university campuses to only the most senior administrators.

what can be lost

However, for many Afghans, the phone is not destroying their future. This may be one of the few devices they still have for protection.

This is especially true in healthcare, where distance, poverty and Taliban restrictions already make treatment difficult. Afghanistan’s health system is under severe strain, with many hospitals and clinics facing shortages of staff, medicines and funding. Patients in rural provinces often travel for hours to receive treatment, sometimes across several districts or provinces. The barriers are even greater for women. Taliban restrictions on movement, education and employment have limited women’s access to care and jeopardised the future pipeline of female doctors, nurses and midwives.

In that environment, a phone can connect patients with help. A pregnant woman may call relatives to arrange transportation. A mother may ask the midwife if her newborn baby needs immediate care. The patient can send a photo of the injury before deciding whether to make the expensive trip to the hospital. A healthcare worker can consult colleagues through messaging apps.

For Farzana, those messages are part of everyday work. They help him decide when a situation cannot wait.

“Due to the restrictions, it has become difficult to take care of every woman in every village,” he said.

Faridoun Farzad, 29, grew up in a village in the Malistan district of Ghazni province, where access to a doctor was never straightforward. Now doing a PhD in artificial intelligence, they have developed a system that analyses smartphone photos of wounds for signs of infection – redness, discolouration and changes in tissue – that can help flag when a patient needs medical care.

The project won a special prize at Moscow’s Archimedes Innovation Exhibition this year. It is still in the research phase and will require larger datasets and clinical validation before widespread use, Farzad said.

“Mobile phones are widely available, affordable and easy to use,” he said. “In many areas, particularly rural communities, people may not have quick access to specialists, but they often have access to smartphones. A mobile-based tool can provide initial guidance and encourage patients to consult health care professionals sooner.”

Farzad’s project is not ready for widespread use. But it shows what mobile technology can make possible in a country where access to medical care is already fragile.

Esmat Khan Amiri, 26, from Daykundi province, used her phone for a different kind of health action. When his father was repeatedly brought to the operating room of a hospital in Kandahar and turned away without surgery, Amiri posted a video describing the ordeal.

“I didn’t have electricity, money or a connection, but I had a phone,” he said. “I wanted people to know what was happening.”

The video spread on social media and Amiri said that the hospital ultimately had to operate on her father due to the resulting pressure.

To call

“Smartphones are not just a means of entertainment or communication,” Amiri said. “It can be a voice for those who are ignored, silenced or discriminated against.”

Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, phone footage has repeatedly captured images the government cannot control: protests, arrests, public punishments and complaints from inside hospitals. The same tools that help families seek medical advice can also uncover abuse.

This visibility is part of what makes smartphones a threat to the Taliban. They allow information to move beyond official control – from a village, a classroom or a hospital ward to the wider public.

For Afghans who have few other ways to seek help, it matters. A phone can connect a mother to a babysitter, a student to a lesson, a patient to a doctor, or a family to an audience when institutions ignore them.

Now, as the Taliban moves to ban smartphones, the country’s most popular device has become one of its most controversial.

Fatima Faizi is a journalist based in New York. He previously reported for the New York Times in Afghanistan, and his work focuses on the impact of the Taliban regime on human rights, women, education, and daily life.

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