The company, called Western European Financial Union (ZEFS), erected the iPhone statue to enable passers-by to learn about the life of the late Steve Jobs.
Apple CEO Cook promoting homosexuality
In a press release, ZEFS claims that current CEO Tim Cook is “promoting homosexuality”, according to reports on the Ekho Moskvy news website. Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently passed a law banning the “advocacy of lifestyles contrary to traditional family values among minors,” and the company fears that its statue may now fall foul of that law, standing as it does in the courtyard of an IT university.
The founder of ZEFS is a man called Maxim Dolgopolov, who claims that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and U.S. security services are in cahoots, cooperating to monitor communications all over the world. He has since claimed that if the statue is installed again it will enable users to “send a message direct to the US National Security Agency and Apple HQ, saying they are refusing to use technology that spies on its subscribers”.
Routine Apple iPhone repairs?
Although the media has widely reported Mr. Dolgopolov’s statement, there is still some confusion over its veracity. The university where the monument stood, The National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, has told the state news agency Tass that there were plans to remove the iPhone for repairs before Cook’s announcement.
Whether or not the statue was going to be removed for repairs does not reduce the ridiculousness of claiming that a memorial to Steve Jobs was a fountain of homosexual propaganda. It would appear that Mr. Dolgopolov wants to avoid any problems with the Russian government, and has gone way out of his way to show his willingness to abide by the rules, with Russians yet to discover to what degree the new law will be applied.
