{"id":74411,"date":"2025-09-23T20:49:58","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/sep\/23\/taliban-afghanistan-internet-shutdown-women-girls-education-hope"},"modified":"2025-09-23T20:49:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:49:58","slug":"it-kept-our-spirits-alive-talibans-internet-blackout-leaves-girls-in-despair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=74411","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It kept our spirits alive\u2019: Taliban\u2019s internet blackout leaves girls in despair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many Afghan women and girls can no longer communicate or study online after the internet is cut off in 12 provinces<\/p>\n<p>Last week, 17-year-old Marjaneh* sat at her computer, waiting for her nightly online English lessons to begin. At 7pm, the scheduled start time, her laptop screen stayed black. The family\u2019s wifi, like the wireless internet across her neighbourhood, had gone and with it, her only chance to continue her education.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese online classes were my only source of hope,\u201d says Marjaneh, speaking from Afghanistan through a crackling phone connection. \u201cI thought, when they [Taliban] closed schools at least they wouldn\u2019t cut the internet, but now that has been taken away too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/sep\/23\/taliban-afghanistan-internet-shutdown-women-girls-education-hope\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many Afghan women and girls can no longer communicate or study online after the internet is cut off in 12 provincesLast week, 17-year-old Marjaneh* sat at her computer, waiting for her nightly online English lessons to begin. At 7pm, the scheduled star&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4991,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,59,860,53,79,61,44,281,617,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-global-development","category-global-education","category-human-rights","category-society","category-south-and-central-asia","category-taliban","category-women","category-womens-rights-and-gender-equality","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4991"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74412,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74411\/revisions\/74412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}