Telegram Lawyers Say Managed to Appeal Blocking in Russia Before Deadline

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Lawyers of Telegram messenger managed to send a complaint against its blocking in Russia by mail - thus, the decision has not yet entered into force, spokesman for Agora international human rights group, which represents the interests of the messenger, Dmitry Kolbasin, told Sputnik on Tuesday.

"The complaint was sent by post. It is considered to be dated as of its delivery to the post office. It was sent by mail on Friday," Kolbasin explained.

Thus, the decision on blocking Telegram has not yet entered into force, he stressed.

According to the law, after receiving the mail, the court recognizes the deadline by the date of the postmark and accepts the complaint for consideration if it is valid.

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Earlier, a note that the decision to block the messenger has entered into force appeared on the court's website, but was deleted on Monday.

In the appeal, the messenger's lawyers claim that the application to block was filed by an unauthorized person, the court violated the procedural order of the application and allowed gross violations of the adversarial principle and the company's right to protection and did not substantiate the need and the proportionality of restrictions imposed on the company.

In addition, the defense claims that the situation led to the blocking of millions of IP addresses, which "had a disastrous effect on a wide range of Internet services that have nothing to do with Telegram."

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On April 13, a Moscow district court authorized Roskomnadzor, the Russian communications watchdog, to block Telegram messenger in Russia without waiting for the appeal's consideration. The court pointed out that Telegram would remain blocked in Russia until it provided encryption keys to the Russian authorities, since the messenger could be used by terrorists for communication.

The blocking of Telegram in the country has commenced on April 16. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said that the messenger would use built-in methods to bypass the restriction. In response, Roskomnadzor has blocked a range of IP addresses belonging to Google and Amazon, which were used by Telegram.