Mahjooba Nowrouzi
BBC Afghan Service, Kabul
Bbc
Thousands of cameras are now used to monitor the movements of Kabul residents
In a crowded control center, surrounded by dozens of television screens, the Taliban police force proudly show its newly acquired network of 90,000 video surveillance cameras – the habit of monitoring the daily lives of millions of people.
“We are monitoring the whole city of Kabul from here,” said Khalid Zadran, spokesperson for the Taliban police chief, pointing to one of the screens.
Authorities say that such surveillance will help fight crime, but criticism fear that it will be used to repress dissent and monitor the strict morality code imposed by the Islamist Taliban government under their interpretation of Sharia law.
The BBC is the first international journalists authorized to see the system in action.
Inside the control room, the police are seated in rows looking at the live flows of thousands of cameras, keeping an eye on the lives of the six million people living in Kabul.
From automotive license plates to facial expressions, everything is monitored.
“In some districts, when we notice groups of people and suspect that they could be involved in drug use, criminal activities or something suspicious, we quickly contact the local police,” said Zadran.
“They arrive quickly to investigate the nature of the rally.”
As part of the previous government, Kabul was threatened daily with attacks by the Taliban and so-called Islamic State activists, as well as cars’ abductions and jackings. When the Taliban resumed power in 2021, they promised to repress the crime.
The spectacular increase in the number of surveillance cameras in the capital is a sign of growing sophistication in the way the Taliban apply law and order. Before their return, only 850 cameras were in place in the capital, according to a spokesperson for the security forces chased from power.
However, in the past three years, the Taliban authorities have also introduced a range of draconian measures limiting the rights and freedoms of people, especially those of women. The Taliban government has not been officially recognized by any other country.
Taliban spokesperson Khalid Zadran said the surveillance system is used to reduce crime
The monitoring system that the BBC is indicated in Kabul has the option of following people by facial recognition. At the corner of a screen, images appear with each face classified by age group, sex and whether or not they have a beard or a facial mask.
“On clear days, we can zoom in on individuals (who are) kilometers,” explains Zadran, highlighting a camera positioned at the top which focuses on a very frequented circulation junction.
The Taliban even monitor their own staff. At a checkpoint, while the soldiers opened the trunk of a car for inspection, the operators concentrated their objectives, zooming in examining the content inside.
The Ministry of the Interior says that cameras have “significantly contributed to improving security, slowing crime rates and quickly understanding offenders”. He adds that the introduction of video surveillance and motorcycles has resulted in a 30% decrease in crime rates between 2023 and 2024, but it is not possible to check these figures independently.
However, rights defense groups are concerned about who is monitored and for how long.
Amnesty International said that the installation of cameras “under the guise of” national security “establishes a model for the Taliban to pursue their draconian policies which violate the fundamental rights of people in Afghanistan – in particular women in public spaces”.
By law, women are not allowed to be heard outside their homes, although in practice, this is not strictly applied. Teenagers are prevented from accessing secondary and higher education. Women are excluded from many forms of employment. In December, the training of women as midwives and nurses told the BBC that they had received the order not to return to class.
While women continue to be visible in the streets of cities like Kabul, they must wear a face cover.
Fariba fears that cameras will be used to monitor women’s support to strict rules on how they dress in public
Fariba *, a young graduate who lives with her parents in Kabul, has not been able to find work since coming to power. She tells the BBC that there is “a significant concern that surveillance cameras can be used to monitor hijabs (sails) of women”.
The Taliban say that only city police have access to the video surveillance system and the spread of virtue and prevention of the VICE ministry – the Taliban morality police – do not use it.
But Fariba fears that the cameras put more in danger those who oppose the domination of the Taliban.
“Many people, in particular former military members, human rights defenders and the protest of women, find it difficult to move freely and often live in secret,” she said.
“It is important to fear that surveillance cameras will also be used to monitor women’s hijabs,” she said.
Human Rights Watch, on the other hand, says that Afghanistan has not implemented data protection laws to regulate how the video surveillance images collected are held and used.
The police said that the data is only preserved for three months, while, according to the Ministry of the Interior, the cameras do not constitute a threat to privacy because they “are exploited from a special and completely confidential room by a specific and professional person”.
The cameras seem to be Chinese manufacturing. The control room monitors and the brand on the flows that the BBC has seen bears the name Dahua, a company linked to the Chinese government. Previous reports that the Taliban were in talks with Chinese Huawei technologies to buy cameras were refused by the company. Taliban officials refused to answer the BBC questions in the place they provided the equipment.
Part of the cost of installing the new network falls on ordinary Afghans who are monitored by the system.
In a house in the center of Kabul, the BBC spoke to Shella *, which was invited to pay for some of the cameras installed in the streets near her house.
“They demanded thousands of Afghanis from all households,” she said. It is a large amount in a country where women who have a job can only earn about 5,000 Afghanis ($ 68; £ 54) per month.
Shella says he was asked to pay the cost of certain cameras
The humanitarian situation in Kabul and Afghanistan in general remains precarious after years of war. The economy of the country is in crisis, but the financing of international aid has been largely arrested since the Taliban returned to power.
According to the United Nations, 30 million people need help.
“If the families refused to pay (for the cameras), they were threatened with water and electricity within three days,” added Shella. “We had to contract loans to cover costs.
“People die of hunger – how good these cameras are?”
The Taliban say that if people do not want to contribute, they can file an official complaint.
“The participation was voluntary and the donations were in hundreds, not thousands,” insists Khalid Zadran, the Taliban police spokesperson.
Despite insurance, activists of rights inside and outside Afghanistan continue to worry about how such a powerful monitoring system will be used.
Jaber, a vegetable seller in Kabul, says that the cameras represent another way in which the Afghans feel helpless.
“We are treated as garbage, neither we have denied the opportunity to earn a living, and the authorities consider us as worthless,” he told the BBC.
“We can not do anything with it.”
* The names of the women interviewed for this part have been modified for their safety
With additional reports from Peter Ball
