Iranian Ayatollah Proclaims High Speed Internet is Immoral and Inhumane
Islamic clerics are all about moral equivalency. The latest is from Ayatollah Makarem Shiraz is has issued a moral decree that states that 3G internet access is immoral and inhumane. Wait until Iran gets 4G internet access.
Let me see if I understand this moral conundrum. Access to the internet at ever higher speeds is immoral but lopping off heads and cutting bodies in half is, well, all part of Islamic justice, but the Internet, we can’t have that.
Information is dangerous to tyrants. They don’t want their subjects checking out competing worldviews. Control of the internet is Islam’s electronic Berlin Wall. It’s not that they think it’s evil; they only want to control it for for their own ends.
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An Iranian Grand Ayatollah has said high speed internet is unethical and contrary to humanitarian principles, Iranian media sources reported on Tuesday.
Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, a prominent Shia scholar, made the remarks in response to a question put to him by cyber activists, via his website.
Although Iran has the highest total number of internet users in the Middle East, its average data speed is about a tenth of the global average.
However, Shirazi said 3G — third generation mobile communications technology — and broadband internet were morally wrong, and that there needed to be standards to prevent users from dangers such as “immoral and inhumane” videos and photos, rumors, and espionage.
The Grand Ayatollah’s comments come after one of Iran’s largest mobile operators, Irancell, announced this month that it would test 3G services to universities and government offices, and after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said earlier this year that Iran should upgrade its internet services.
In addition to his conservative stance on the internet, the Grand Ayatollah, whose ancestors were Jewish converts to Shi’ite Islam, has also dubbed the Holocaust “nothing but superstition.”
