The Taliban has put in place a massive monitoring network of 90,000 CCTV cameras throughout Kabul to keep tabs on the daily routines of six million citizens. The state-of-the-art security system enables the government to monitor everything from license plates to facial expressions, raising concerns about privacy infringement and human rights violations.
Total Surveillance Over Kabul
“We monitor the entire city of Kabul from here,” said Khalid Zadran, a spokesperson for the Taliban police chief, in an interview with the BBC. He continued that in some neighborhoods, if suspicious or criminal activity is detected by authorities, they immediately notify local police forces to intervene.
The system employs face recognition software, grouping people according to age, gender, beards, and face masks. “On clear days, we can zoom in on individuals [who are] kilometres away,” Zadran disclosed, highlighting the system’s capabilities as a surveillance tool.
Surveillance Under the Guise of Security
The Taliban says these measures are in order to curb crime and uphold law and order. Critics, though, say this technology would be used to impose the Taliban’s rigid interpretation of Sharia law, including morality policing.
Amnesty International denounced the mass surveillance, saying that the installation of cameras “under the pretext of ‘national security’ provides a template for the Taliban to continue their repressive policies that undermine basic rights of Afghans – particularly women in public places.”
Women and Activists Fear Monitoring
Most Afghan women fear that the cameras might be utilized to enforce adherence to Taliban dress codes, e.g., donning the hijab. Demonstrators and human rights activists, already living in hiding, are concerned that this surveillance will put their lives in greater jeopardy.
But the Taliban maintains that the morality police, officially called Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry, do not make use of the surveillance system, and only the police of the city have access to it.
Forced Payments for Surveillance
Kabul residents have also complained of being forced to pay for these security cameras. Shella (whose name has been changed), who lives in downtown Kabul, complained that the Taliban forced thousands of Afghanis from every family to pay for camera installation outside their homes. “If families refused to pay [for the cameras], they were threatened with water and power cuts within three days. We had to take loans to cover the costs,” she grumbled.
Frowning in frustration, she continued, “People are starving – what good are these cameras to them?”
A Nation in Crisis
Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, Afghanistan has known abject economic distress with foreign aid suspended. Almost 30 million Afghans depend on humanitarian aid for survival.
Meanwhile, the Taliban is spending funds on surveillance, millions are unable to buy food, medicine, and basics and ask whose interests the regime is serving.