As per a judicial order, Iranian popular Android market Cafe Bazaar has removed Telegram messaging app from its services.
According to local technology business consultancy ECM, Telegram has been removed from Cafe Bazaar due to a judicial order issued by the Committee for Determining Instances of Criminal Content, a working group under the supervision of the attorney general.
While the official Telegram applications (Telegram and Telegram X) have been removed from the app store, Cafe Bazaar still has locally developed ‘forks’ of the app on offer which have often been slammed by cyber security auditors as insecure.
In software engineering, a “project fork” happens when developers take a copy of the source code from one software package—in this case, Telegram’s source code—and start independent development, creating a distinct piece of software in the process.
Telegram is the most popular messaging app and social media platform in Iran with over 40 million active users. The services have been blocked in Iran since last Tuesday on a judicial order.
Administration’s Stance
On Friday, President Hassan Rouhani in an Instagram post criticized the ban saying his administration’s policy in regard to cyberspace has been creating a safe and secure environment. He writes, “Not a single social media platform has been blocked by the current administration.”
According to Rouhani, “Telegram has not been blocked by the government and neither [the move] is supported by the government.”
Earlier Rouhani’s top ICT man, Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi, took to Twitter to say, “Even if a single application is blocked, citizens’ access to information cannot be obstructed. Other applications will emerge and people will gain free access to information again. This is in the nature of the current era, the age of communications.”
In response to many who claim that Telegram has been a lair for criminals, the ICT minister is of the opinion that technologies should not be disparaged as sources of crime and corruption and that it is the users who decide how to apply a tool.
He further wrote, “No one can impede technology’s growth and expansion.” According to Azari-Jahromi, any endeavor to thwart and hinder technology is doomed to failure and leads to self-imposed isolation.
