Tehran Prosecutor Files Charges Against Telegram Messaging Network Manager

The Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor's Office of Tehran has announced that it has filed charges against the management of the Telegram messaging network, and this case has been referred to the International Affairs Division of the Tehran Prosecutor's Office. Telegram is an open-source social network that allows users to send and share various types of visual, audio, and text files. Pavel Durov, a Russian entrepreneur, co-founded Telegram in 2013 and currently manages it. According to the Mizan news agency, affiliated with the judiciary, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the Tehran prosecutor, stated on Tuesday, October 4, that 'the fact that Telegram considers itself subject to Western laws will not prevent the handling of this complaint.' He has accused the network of 'providing services to terrorist groups including ISIS,' creating 'a suitable environment for the activities of other organized criminal groups,' and 'committing crimes of child pornography, human trafficking, and drug trafficking.' Following the attacks by a group affiliated with the 'Islamic State' or ISIS on the Iranian Parliament and the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini on June 17 of this year, Iranian officials claimed that the ISIS attackers coordinated their actions on Telegram. This is not the first time that the Tehran Prosecutor's Office has filed charges against individuals abroad and claims to issue indictments against them. On September 26, Mr. Dolatabadi also announced that a case had been opened against 'one of the anti-revolutionary suspects abroad,' and that his charges would be addressed in the Tehran Revolutionary Court. He did not name this suspect but referred to him as the director of the 'Iran and Arab Studies Center,' which apparently refers to Alireza Noorizadeh, a London-based journalist and director of the 'Iran and Arab Studies Center.' In recent years, the Iranian judiciary has exerted significant pressure on the Ministry of Communications to block the Telegram messaging network. However, President Hassan Rouhani's government has repeatedly opposed blocking this network and has made extensive efforts to transfer some of its servers to the country. According to the Tasnim news agency, the Supreme Council of Cyberspace granted Telegram a 12-month deadline to transfer its servers to Iran earlier this year, while Pavel Durov rejected such a request. Mohammad Javad Montazeri, the Attorney General of the Islamic Republic, criticized what he called the opening of a 'social media highway in Iran' in July of this year, stating that there is 'no control' over these networks and that Telegram and Instagram are respectively 'Russian and Zionist.' According to the latest statistics published by the Deputy of the Cyber Space Center on September 27, there are currently over 40 million Telegram users in Iran, and this messaging service occupies 60% of Iran's internet bandwidth. Amir Khorakian also added that there are currently 580,000 active Telegram channels in Iran. This statistic is noteworthy considering that the number of global Telegram users reached 100 million in 2017, indicating that Iranians comprise 40% of all users of this messaging service. In this context, '60% of the internet bandwidth' in Iran is occupied by Telegram. Does Telegram cooperate with the Iranian government? Vaezi: Telegram's server was transferred to Iran; Telegram's CEO denied it. Six managers of Telegram channels in Iran were sentenced to 23 years in prison. A four-year prison sentence was issued for the manager of a reformist Telegram channel. The virtual space and the new cabinet of Hassan Rouhani; will the security perspective increase? The changing battlefield of 'proxy forces'; war against the people in the streets of Iran. The first paragraph; the responsibility of opponents and the possibility of radicalizing Iranian society. The death of the last Mossad representative in Tehran amid the Iran crisis. 1300 hours of internet outages; Witkoff: a horrific massacre occurred during the protests in Iran.