In Thailand’s Deep South, Abdullah has cut himself off from modern communications. He makes long drives through dangerous, dark roads to meet people in person. He uses only a landline to check on his wife and son at home. He refuses to register his biometrics to get a SIM card as mandated by law. The Thai government says this is necessary in the Malay Muslim-majority southernmost provinces, where militants wage an insurgency and use burner phones to detonate bombs. But Muslim locals say it is just the latest tool for the Thai security services to intervene in their lives. Pattani Calling is a story of a community forcibly disconnected from modern communication by state digital policies.

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