By Al-Monitor. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iran Business News.
The Telegram messaging application is the most popular mobile software in Iran, but it has always been on the verge of being blocked for various reasons.
Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi, Tehran’s prosecutor general, has announced that the Iranian judiciary has filed a lawsuit against the manager of Telegram, a decision that may be the first phase of new attempts at blocking Telegram.
Pavel Durov, who is called the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia, is a Russian entrepreneur and the manager of Telegram, which is headquartered in Berlin.
Dolatabadi stated Sept. 26: “A lawsuit has been filed against the Telegram manager, and this case has been referred to the International Affairs [section] of the Tehran Court.” Adding, “Telegram has become an appropriate platform for the activities of organized criminal groups, in addition to providing services to terrorist groups, including Daesh [Islamic State], and promoting child pornography, human trafficking and narcotics trafficking.”
On July 26, Abdolsamad Khoram Abadi, a deputy of Iran’s prosecutor general, said, “Daesh carried out all its coordination for the terrorist attack on [Iranian] parliament through Telegram,” referring to the two terrorist attacks that were simultaneously executed on June 7 by five terrorists in Tehran, resulting in the deaths of more than 17 people.