Afghanistan’s leader has ordered all civil servants and members of the country’s armed forces to stop bringing their smartphones to work as of Wednesday, the latest restriction on individual freedoms imposed by the Taliban government.
Some government agencies have scrambled for alternatives, reverting to regular cellular calls instead of WhatsApp, which they overwhelmingly rely on as they try to keep a country of 45 million running amid economic isolation, devastating aid cuts and a conflict with neighboring Pakistan.
Afghanistan’s highest court issued the order, but it did not provide a justification for it.
Government representatives did not respond to requests for comment, but eight civil servants, police officers and education professionals in five provinces confirmed the authenticity of the ban and said that it had begun taking effect in their offices.
“We have received the order and are in the process of implementing it,” Khalid Ahmad Fazli, a communications official in Daikundi Province, told The New York Times.
Another provincial official and a press officer for the Supreme Court also confirmed the implementation of the order, on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the ban.
Those caught using their smartphones will have them smashed and face punishment, according to a copy of the order circulating online.
As news of the ban ricocheted across social media, civil servants and security personnel posted videos of colleagues smashing their smartphones to comply with the new rule.
In the clips, some workers said, “Our work shows obedience to the Emir’s order,” in a reference to Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, the ultraconservative cleric who rules Afghanistan and ordered the ban.
A police officer in Samangan Province, in northern Afghanistan, said that the Supreme Court had sent a letter announcing the ban to his headquarters and that a senior police official had told officers on Tuesday, “Be careful not to use smartphones, this is an order from the Emir and we cannot oppose it.”
The employee, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
In Nangarhar Province, in the east, a high school teacher said that officers from the Taliban’s morality police had begun confiscating smartphones at the school’s gate on Wednesday. A WhatsApp group for teachers and administrative staff has gone silent, he said.
Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, they have stifled freedom of expression by repressing protests, controlling what people wear, and restricting access to social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snap. Last September, the government imposed a countrywide internet blackout for two days under the guise of preventing “immoral behavior” online.
A similar rationale seems to be at play with the latest ban.
During a meeting earlier this month in the southern city of Kandahar, religious scholars and judges from a military court asked Sheikh Haibatullah to issue a countrywide ban on smartphones to prevent what they described as the spread of pornography and corruption, according to one participant and another person briefed on the meeting.
Other religious and administrative leaders also asked Sheikh Haibatullah for a total ban in a separate meeting the following day.
Sheikh Haibatullah then issued a mandate that he said would target, as a first step, all soldiers, civil servants, teachers and government officials, according to the Supreme Court order. Those seeking exemption must obtain written permission from the supreme leader.
It was not immediately clear how the order would be implemented: Hundreds of thousands of people work in the Taliban-ruled administration or serve in its security forces.
An employee in the financial department of Herat Province said that his office had received the order from the Ministry of Finance but that as of Thursday, he and his colleagues were still using their smartphones at work.
Many members of the Taliban movement do not bring their smartphones to government offices as they deem them immoral and distracting, even though most of them own one. As of 2024, there were 25 million mobile subscriptions in Afghanistan, according to the World Bank.
Asadullah, a civil servant in central Afghanistan, said the ban had already left him struggling to complete his daily tasks. He said, “Out of habit, I checked my pocket several times today and it felt as if I had lost something.”
