The other tragedy: thousands of Afghans erase their traces on social networks and the internet to escape the Taliban

The Taliban’s return to power sparked chaos in Afghanistan. Fear gripped Afghan women, the main victims of his regime in the past, and all those who collaborated with the previous government and with the US occupation forces.

But there is an army of four million people, out of a total of 32.2 million inhabitants, who access daily social networks and race against time to erase all your history and leave no clue about their published posts, photos and videos.

The reason? The fear that taliban can use them in the future to accuse them of any crime or violation of Sharia law, Islamic law that governed his regime between 1996 and 2001.

It is, in short, his “fingerprintsAccumulated in the virtual world during the 20 years of American occupation and governments backed by Washington.

A new and now dangerous world

When the Taliban were ousted from power, social media was in its infancy and smartphones were just a project. Today, 20 years later, the use of these technologies is common among Afghans and Afghans who have achieved a high level of education.

However, according to an article published in the magazine New scientist, digital security has not been developed to the same level.

Thousands of Afghans are now asking how to erase their digital archives. The international organization Human Rights First has the answer, but only in English, not in the official Afghan language: Farsi.

The publication said that “there are guides available” in this language, but not in Dari or Pashtun, other languages ​​spoken in the country.

In this context, the lawyer Night dad, activist of the NGO Digital Rights Foundation, wrote in New Scientist that the Afghan security forces “should have focused more on digital security” than their local task forces.

He even warned that afghans and afghans What they collaborated with the occupying forces are in a dilemma: if they erase their files, they will throw away the only traces of their work that would allow them to apply for asylum in the future in some western countries. But if they keep this evidence, they run the risk of being hunted down by the Taliban.

“It is understandable that many Afghans are particularly concerned about those who have collaborated with Western forces, NGOs or foreign journalists, and who have not been able to leave the country,” Dad said.

And he added: “That’s why try to delete your digital identity as soon as possible. Some activists have asked me directly for help establishing a secure line and figuring out how to initiate a massive cleanup of their data. “

Added to this is the digitization of the Afghan bureaucracy, with the introduction of electronic identity cards and the digitization of biometric data, such as fingerprints.

This data will inevitably fall into the hands of the Taliban. And the fear of a witch hunt has gripped the country.