Boroujerdi: People Believe Using Telegram Does Not Lead to Arrests or Summons

Aladdin Boroujerdi, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian Parliament, acknowledged in an interview that compared to domestic messaging apps, people believe that using Telegram does not lead to arrests or legal follow-ups, which is the reason for its popularity. According to Mr. Boroujerdi, the public opinion in Iran is that, unlike local messaging apps, using Telegram does not involve 'arrests or summons.' In a conversation with the ISNA news agency published on Tuesday, he described the blocking of Telegram in Iran as a 'national decision' and stated that besides 'security and various other issues,' one of the reasons for blocking Telegram was 'to prevent the buying and selling of virtual currency.' He mentioned that if Telegram had not been filtered in Iran, due to the design of virtual currency, 'there was a possibility of a tsunami [similar to] credit institutions,' which Abolhassan Firouzabadi, the Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, warned about. Boroujerdi, when he was the head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, was the first to announce that this would happen before the blocking of Telegram, stating that this decision was made at the 'highest level' of the government and 'considering the destructive role of Telegram.' In Esfand 96, some Telegram channels reported that in one of the sessions of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace attended by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had 'strongly' criticized the lifting of the Telegram filter. Ali Motahari, the Deputy Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, also referred to the decision to block Telegram as a 'government decree' after Hassan Rouhani's request for the necessity of informing about the decision at the 'high level of the system' and called for the announcement of its reasons. In his conversation on Tuesday, September 13, with ISNA, Boroujerdi also added that after the blocking of Telegram, the Islamic Republic officials 'replaced it with Golden Telegram and Hotgram, which have 20 million members, and officials announced that Golden Telegram and Hotgram are without obstacles.' Abolfazl Hassanbeigi, another member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, quoted the Minister of Intelligence saying that the Golden Telegram messaging app belongs to the Islamic Republic. Mr. Boroujerdi defended the blocking of this messaging app by saying that when 'Telegram had four million users in Iran, the judiciary was adamant about filtering Telegram.' However, Boroujerdi acknowledged in his statements that 'public opinion believes that due to the existence of Telegram servers outside the country, working with Telegram does not cause any problems for them and does not involve arrests or summons, but this does not apply to domestic messaging apps.' Boroujerdi raises this issue while previously several political figures, including the head of the Citizens' Rights faction of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, stated that the 'reality' is that the people of Iran do not trust domestic messaging apps. Abdolkarim Hossein Zadeh stated in an interview with ILNA, 'This is a bitter reality, but people have no trust in domestic messaging apps. This issue will be clarified by a survey of the people.' While the officials of the Islamic Republic defend the blocking of this messaging app and try to direct people to use domestic messaging apps, the latest results of a survey from a polling institute in Iran show that 79% of Telegram users, despite its blocking, still use this network.