The government "does not approve" the judiciary's recent move to ban the popular messaging app Telegram, President Hassan Rouhani said on Friday.
"The recent blocking of Telegram was not implemented by the government and the government does not approve of it," read a post on Rouhani's Instagram account, ISNA reported.
Telegram was banned in Iran last week over national sovereignty concerns – a similar issue that has led to the messaging app being blocked and replaced with domestic apps in other countries.
China, Indonesia and recently Russia are among the countries that have banned Telegram.
“Failure to follow legal procedures and the use of force and judicial means is ... the antithesis of democracy,” Rouhani said.
"If at the highest level of the ruling establishment, a decision has been made to restrict or block communications, the real owners of this country, the people, should be informed," he wrote.
Iran had been considering the ban since January when protests over economic difficulties erupted in more than 80 cities and later turned violent.
At that time, Telegram was blocked by the High Council of Cyberspace, which is tasked with regulating Iran's cyberspace, after it requested the messaging service to block channels inciting armed violence in Iran to no avail.
Telegram initially agreed to shut down one channel accused of encouraging armed clashes. However, the service later refused to take down the same channel's new address and other channels publishing criminal content.
