In Iran, the government is working hard to "help" its citizens become more and more ignorant. On orders of the Iran's Telecommunications Ministry, internet connections are now being deliberately slowed down!
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's internet service providers (ISPs) have started reducing the speed of Internet access to homes and cafes based on new government-imposed limits, a move critics said appeared to be part of a clampdown on the media.
An official said last week that ISPs were now "forbidden" by the Telecommunications Ministry from providing Internet connections faster than 128 kilobytes per second (KBps), the official IRNA news agency reported. He did not give a reason.
Internet technicians say speeds of 256 KBps, 512 KBps or higher are increasingly common internationally. Iranian surfers will now find it much slower to download music or anything else from the Web. Businesses have not been affected by the move.
Critics said the restriction would hinder the work of students and researchers but said it appeared in line with what they see as a squeeze on the media by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who rails against the West.
"Once more, one of the most important tools for providing information is faced with new government red lines and restrictions," the opposition reform-minded daily, Etemad-e Melli, wrote in an article on the new speed limitation.
The authorities have shutdown the leading pro-reform newspaper and launched a crackdown on those flouting a ban on satellite dishes. Critics say the authorities have put increasing pressure on opposition journalists, academics and students.
This is the same Iranian government that has clamped down on Western music and smashed satellite dishes of its own people.
Bit by bit, the freedom of the Iranian people is being snuffed out!
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