Iranian court bans Telegram

Iran's judicial authorities have banned the use of the Telegram messenger in the country, Reuters reported, citing Iranian state television.

“Taking into account the numerous complaints about Telegram from Iranian citizens, and also based on the requirements of the security services to combat illegal activities in Telegram, the judiciary banned its use in Iran,” Iranian television announced.

According to the Iranian agency Fars, the work of Telegram is planned to be blocked in such a way that users cannot bypass access restrictions via VPN or in any other programmatic way.

Earlier in April, it was reported that Iranian government agencies were banned from using Telegram and recommended to switch to a locally developed messenger. The Iranian authorities did not confirm this information.

On April 18, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announced that he would be pulling out of Telegram. Analysts considered this a sign that the messenger will soon be banned in Iran.

• In Iran, the Telegram messenger has about 40 million users. The population of Iran is about 80 million people. In total, the messenger had about 200 million users around the world at the end of March, including about 15 million in Russia.
• Earlier, the Iranian authorities restricted access to Telegram, including against the backdrop of mass protests that took place in the country at the end of 2017. In January, it was reported that access to Telegram in Iran was reopened .
• In Russia, in mid-April, a court ruled to block Telegram after the messenger refused to hand over encryption keys to users' correspondence to the FSB. Roskomnadzor began blocking Telegram on April 16. During the blocking, about 20 million Amazon and Google IP addresses were blacklisted, which caused disruptions in the operation of many services and sites in Russia. Telegram still works for most Russian users without VPN and other ways to bypass blocking.
• On April 30, a rally sanctioned by the authorities in defense of Telegram took place in Moscow, in which, according to various sources, from 7.5 thousand to 12 thousand people took part. The protesters, in particular, demanded that Telegram be blocked by May 5 and Roskomnadzor should be liquidated.