Earlier on Friday,
the Russian media watchdog filed a lawsuit against Telegram.
MOSCOW, April 6.
/TASS/. Telegram is a convenient tool to communicate with journalists but if it
is blocked, the need will arise to search for an alternative, Russian
Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
"There are a lot
of messaging services, Telegram is a very convenient one, we have been
particularly using it to communicate with journalists," the Kremlin
spokesman told reporters. "It will be a pity if no consensus is reached [between
Telegram and supervisory bodies] but as far as we understand, it has not
happened yet," he added.
"A law is a law,
and if it is violated and no measures are taken, we will search for an
alternative that would fulfill our requirements in the best possible way,"
Peskov said.
Telegram’s lawyer
Ramil Akhmetgaliyev said earlier that the company was technically unable to
provide decryption keys to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). He added
that the company did not plan to fulfill the FSB’s demand as it was
unconstitutional.
"Telegram’s
position has not changed - the FSB’s demand to provide decryption keys for
messages is unconstitutional, it is not based on law and can be fulfilled
neither technically nor legally, which means that the demand to block Telegram
is baseless," Akhmetgaliyev said.
By the same token, he
declined to comment on legal and technical details, noting that he had not seen
the Russian media watchdog’s lawsuit. "Everything depends on the text of
the lawsuit, we haven’t read it yet so we cannot provide further
comments," the lawyer added.
Earlier on Friday,
the Russian media watchdog filed a lawsuit against Telegram for failing to act
on an official request to furnish the keys to decrypt user messages within the
prescribed time limit.
Source: ITAR-TASS
06-04-2018
