SecondAdika Madadgar’s online performance is similar to that of other successful young influencers. She participated in the Afghan Star Singing Competition and won a large number of followers with her beautiful voice and her down-to-earth demeanor as the girl next door.But then the radical Islamists came back Taliban Back in power, the lives of twenty-two and other famous influencers suddenly changed.
21,200 Afghans followed Sadika Madadgar on YouTube and 182,000 followed the user on Instagram. One video shows her enjoying the fun of cutting melons, while another video shows her singing a folk song in a cafe.
Madadgar is a devout Muslim, she wears a headscarf. She was unprepared for the Taliban’s seizure of power. On Saturday, she posted an obvious political message on Instagram for the first time. “I don’t like sharing my sadness online, but it makes me sick,” she wrote. “When I saw my home slowly being destroyed, my heart broke.” The next day, the Taliban Occupy Kabul-the voice of Madagascar is on the Internet.
The seizure of power by Islamists shook the cyber world in Afghanistan. Famous influencers have fled, others are in hiding.
Millions of young Afghan people worry that their Internet posts may now be life-threatening. Memories of the Taliban’s first reign of terror from 1996 to 2001 are everywhere. At the time, women were excluded from public life, and girls were not allowed to go to school—and there were cruel punishments, such as stone-throwing and adultery.
“People like me are no longer safe”
Some people have little illusion about what the new era means to Afghanistan. “If the Taliban occupy Kabul, people like me will no longer be safe,” said fashion icon and businesswoman Ajeda Schadab dem. ZDFWhen the security situation has deteriorated.
Every day, Schadab showcases the latest styles from her Kabul boutique on Instagram-she is showing them recently Dualipa Asymmetric transparent ball gown. “Women who don’t wear a veil and work like me don’t accept them,” she told ZDF.
At the same time, Shadab announced on Instagram to her 290,000 followers and 400,000 followers on TikTok that she is in Turkey. Others also moved to safety: One of Afghanistan’s most famous pop stars, Aryana Sayeed, posted a selfie on an American evacuation plane flying to Doha on Wednesday. “My heart, my prayers and my thoughts will always be with you,” she wrote in a letter to readers.
Following prompts from activists, journalists and human rights organizations, Facebook has adopted new security measures to allow Afghan users to quickly block their accounts. The American human rights organization Human Rights First distributed tips on how to remove digital traces in Afghan Pashto and Dari.
The Access Now organization, which campaigns for the rights of Internet users, warns that even mundane content can be dangerous. Their authors may become “targets of revenge because they are not only regarded as infidels by the Taliban, but also as infidels or non-Islamics by other religious extremist groups in the country,” the organization’s Asian expert Raman Chima accepted. Said in an interview with Agence France-Presse News. mechanism.
