Telegram CEO, Pavel Durov, denied the news on giving Telegram users’ information to Iran regime and said local officials should not impose their demands on this cloud-based instant messaging service even if like in China it results in filtering and blockade of Telegram.
He says the location of the servers of this messenger or the privacy policy of users will never change. He reacted to the news on transfer of Telegram’s severs to Iran and emphasized; “Despite limitation of the laws or the threat of local authorities, the telegram is only responsible for users, and only users can dictate their wishes to us.”
The Iranian regime’s deputy minister of communications and information technology told reporters on Saturday, July 22, that the telegram had accepted the regime’s request for the transfer of its servers to the country.
Earlier, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, CEO of Infrastructure Communications Ltd., also announced in a televised conversation about the need to transfer the server of external social networks such as Telegram to Iran for security and economic issues.
Pavel Durov in a quick reaction to his Twitter account called this issue “absolutely absurd.”
Iranian regime’s Attorney General, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, referred to the opening of the “Social Networking Highway” in Iran several days ago and said there was no “control” on these networks.
Montazeri called the Telegram and Instagram “Russian and Zionist,” and added: “Daesh (ISIS) was a conspiracy by the United States, Zionism and Saudi Arabia, but they failed, but today they have invested in the ideas of youth, cyberspace and social networks.”
It is believed that Telegram instant messaging service has 25 million users in Iran.
