WUNRN
IRAN - TOP RELIGIOUS LEADER BANS
ONLINE CHATTING BETWEEN MEN & WOMEN NOT RELATED
By Sara Malm – January 8, 2014
The religious leader of
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei published a
fatwa against the practice - on his own website - branding it 'immoral'.
Ayatollah Khamenei's religious ruling followed a recent
ban of a popular messaging app for smartphones used by millions to connect.
Banning immorality: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei published a
fatwa on his website calling online chatting between men and women who are not
related 'immoral'
The Ayatollah was asked about intersex online chatting,
to which he replied: 'Given the immorality that often applies to this, it is
not permitted.'
Days earlier, Iranian authorities blocked
WeChat, an app similar to WhatsApp with more than 100 million users that
enables access to social networks.
Both Facebook and
Twitter, as well as other social networks, are banned in
Despite this ban,
many Teheran officials have both Facebook and Twitter accounts, including
President Hassan Rowhani who has 163,000 followers on Twitter.
Many Iranians also circumvent the ban by using proxy
servers to access social networks.
'It’s not the social sites that scare them, it’s people
connecting,' Azadeh, 34, from
In November 2013 Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister
Ali Jannati said told the state news agency IRNA that the government should
allow access to social-networking websites including Twitter and Facebook,
'Not only Facebook, but other social networks should be
accessible and the illegal qualification should be removed,' Jannati said.
However, any plans to unblock the communication channels
were rubbished by Iranian Telecommunications Minister Mahmoud Vaezi earlier
last year.
'The ban on networks such as Facebook and Twitter was not
supposed to be lifted,' he told local news.