Taliban’s observation network monitoring monitoring

At a crowded control center surrounded by dozens of TV screens, the Taliban police force proudly shows the newly purchased network of 90,000 CCTV cameras – millions of people are used to watch daily lives.

“We are watching all the city of Kabul here,” says one of the screens, saying that the Taliban police chief Khalid Zadran said.

Authorities say such control will help to fight crime, but will be used to track critics and watch the harsh moral code imposed by the Islamist Taliban government Under the interpretation of Sharia law.

The BBC is the first international journalists to be allowed to see the system in action.

Inside the control room, police officers sit in line with thousands of cameras, who are subject to six million people living in Kabul.

Everything is watched from car card tiles to facial expressions.

“In certain neighborhoods, we can contact the local police when they can participate in groups of people and suspects, drug use, criminal cases or suspects,” Zadran said.

“They come rapidly to explore the nature of the collection.”

The Kabul, in the previous government, also threatened the attacks of the Taliban and the so-called Islamic State militants, as well as high profile theft and car stairs. When the Taliban rejected the government in 2021, they promised to decline in the crime.

The dramatic increase in the number of control cameras in the capital is the sign of developed subtlety in the Taliban law and manner. Before returning, a total of 850 camera in the capital for the representative of power-controlled security forces.

Only in the last three years, the Taliban also presented a number of Draconian events that limited the rights and freedoms of women, especially women. The Taliban government has not officially recognized by any country.

The observation system is displayed in the BBC Kabul, the ability to watch people with face recognition. The corner of a screenshots opens with every face classified by whether age or a beard or a beard or face mask.

“In clear days, we grow in individuals (who are miles away),” Zadran stresses that a camera places a camera aimed at a busy road junction.

Taliban even controls its own employees. In a checkpoint, the soldiers opened the body of the operators for opening a car for inspection, and reared the lenses in the inside, they showed the growth.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs says the cameras are “significantly contributing to improving security, increase criminal offenses and prevents rapidly insulting.” This has led to a 30% reduction in crime rates between 2023 and 2024, the application of CCTV and motorcycle controls, but these figures are not possible to check independently.

However, law groups are concerned about who is watching and how long.

Amnesty International “In terms of national security” cameras will violate the fundamental rights of people in Afghanistan for the Taliban for “national security”, especially a template for women in public. “

The law is not allowed to be heard outside of women’s homes, although it does not apply in practice. Junior girls are prevented in the middle and higher education. Women have been banned from many forms of employment. In December, women were uninstalled to teach the BBC as midwives and nurses.

When women continue to appear on the streets of cities like Kabul, it is required to wear face cover.

Fariba *, a young graduate living with his parents in Kabul, could not find a job because the Taliban came to power. He says that the BBC “is an important concern that surveillance cameras can be used to watch women’s hijabs (covers).”

The Taliban does not use the Taliban’s moral police – the Prevention and Assistant of the City Police CCTV system and the vice-minister.

Fariba is concerned about the cameras, then those who oppose the Taliban government.

“Many people, especially former military members, human rights defenders and women who protest, they are struggling to move freely and often live in privacy,” he says.

“There is a significant concern that surveillance cameras will be used to monitor women’s hijabs,” he says.

Human Rights Watch says that this time does not have the laws of information protection to regulate how the Afghan collected CCTV images are held and used.

Police are detained only for three months, according to the Interior Ministry, because they do not pose a special and completely secret room because they use a special and completely confidential room.

The cameras appear to be in China. The control room monitors and brands are named after the BBC, a company related to the Chinese government. Earlier, Taliban was reported to be in talks with China’s Huawei technologies to buy cameras. Taliban officials refused to answer the BBC questions about their equipment.

The cost of installing the new network falls on the usual Afghans watched by the system.

In a house in the central Kabul, BBC spoke to Shella, who wanted to pay for some cameras installed on the streets next to his house.

“They demanded thousands of Afghanistan from every house,” he says. In a country in a country that women with workplace can win only 5,000 Afghanis ($ 68; £ 54) in a month.

The humanitarian situation in Kabul and Afghanistan remains carefully in general, after the war for years. The country’s economy is in crisis, but after the return of the Taliban to power, international aid finances were mainly suspended.

According to the United Nations, 30 million people need help.

“If they refuse to pay for families (for cameras), they threatened with water and power cuts for three days,” Shella added. “We must take a loan to pay the expenses.

“People are hungry – how well these cameras are?”

Taliban says people can make an official complaint if people do not want to contribute.

“Participation was voluntary and not hundreds, not thousands,” Khalid Zadran insists the spokesman for the Taliban police.

Lawyers in Afghanistan, lawyers who support rights outside and foreign lawyers are concerned about how such a strong control system will be used.

Jaber, a vegetable seller in Kabul, says the cameras represent another way for them to be powerless so far.

“We accept us as a garbage, denied the opportunity to gain a living, and the government considers us worthless,” he said.

“We can’t do anything.”

*The names of women who meet for this piece were changed for their safety

With the additional report by Peter Ball