Experts named the main scenarios for Telegram in Russia after unlocking

06/18/2020

Lena Dzhess

When unlocking the messengerTelegram Roskomnadzor will immediately faceseveral legal problems, and the initiative itself can be dictated by both technical and political motives. This was stated by experts interviewed by ForkLog.

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The decision of the Tagansky court of Moscow of April 2018The year in which Telegram is blocked has not yet been canceled. Therefore, the statement of Roskomnadzor to remove restrictions by agreement with the Prosecutor General’s Office caused bewilderment of human rights defenders.

The department needs to cancel the judicial act, filed a lawsuit to reconsider the decision due to newly discovered circumstances, said FarkLog lawyer, partner of the Center for Digital Rights Sarkis Darbinyan:

&#171;Otherwise Roskomnadzor may itself answer for failure to comply with the decision of the Russian court&#187;.

The Moscow City Court, which refused Telegram a cassation appeal, believes that Roskomnadzor has the right to independently unblock the messenger.

&#171;The court sent documents forexecution of the decision on the satisfied demands of Roskomnadzor, which in this case was both the plaintiff and the executor of the court decision. In this regard, issues of execution of the decision are within his competence. That is, in this case, Roskomnadzor can independently decide on full or partial execution of the court decision or refusal to execute it&#187;, &#8212; said Moscow City Court press secretary Ulyana Solopova in a comment to Interfax.

In fact, unlocking will consist ofremoving the main Telegram domain, short links and subnets from the register of prohibited sites, explains the head of the public organization &#171;RosKomSvoboda&#187; Artem Kozlyuk.

&#171;Most subnets related toTelegram, Roskomnadzor entered the register of prohibited information, relying not on the decision of the Tagansky court, but on the so-called &#171;rubber&#187; requirement of the Prosecutor General’s Office,” he recalled.

Independent expert Alexander Isavnin suggests that overloaded Roskomnadzor registries or other technical problems could be one of the reasons Telegram was unblocked.

Without blocking, but in ORI

According to the &#171;Yarovaya law&#187; Telegram includedthe so-called register of information dissemination organizers (ORI) and is obliged to store and, if necessary, provide intelligence services with access to user correspondence. The messenger never complied with this requirement, refusing to hand over the keys to decrypt messages to the FSB.

Since there is no talk of excluding Telegram from the ARIcoming, the head of &#171;RoskomSvoboda&#187; suggested that cooperation between the messenger and intelligence services will continue. In what form will depend on Pavel Durov.

&#171;Being simultaneously outside the blocking and inin the ARI registry, if a representative of the service does not publicly comment on this, indicates the cooperation of the service with the Russian intelligence services,” Artem Kozlyuk pointed out.

Durov later wrote that similar actionsThe Russian authorities are encouraging, and stressed once again that the right to privacy and confidentiality of personal correspondence remain the fundamental principle of Telegram.

Roskomnadzor has the opportunity to withdraw Telegramfrom the list of ORI, since Telegram Messenger LLP, acting as the main legal entity of the messenger, was liquidated in February 2020, continues Alexander Isavnin:

&#171;This is quite convenient: Telegram is there, but there is no formal &#171;refusenik&#187; No. The only point is how to legally formalize this.

Buying a messenger or arrangement?

Among the versions of what made Roskomnadzor unblock Telegram, Isavnin called the change of the department’s leadership and Durov’s agreement with special services.

&#171;There is a version that Durov agreed withsecurity forces from the position of the strong. Because current activities, for example, the fight against drug trafficking, must be carried out, but Telegram does not make contact with them, although in foreign countries it cooperates with law enforcement agencies.

ForkLog’s interlocutor did not rule out the possible purchase of the messenger by &#171;investors connected with Russian money&#187;.

&#171;Conversation inspired by a deputy[Anton] Gorelkin, and the bill to unblock Telegram, which should be considered as PR, may indicate serious political movements,” Isavnin noted.

With the fact that the bill on unblocking Telegramwas initially “unpassable, but allowed us to restart the public discussion and discussion of the fate of Telegram at a new level,” lawyer Sarkis Darbinyan agrees.

Right to compensation

In theory, Telegram lawyers may demand compensation for the blocking period. True, they will have to sue for this abroad, warns Darbinyan.

&#171;Within the framework of Russian law in suchno compensation is provided for the situation. But soon complaints via Telegram will be communicated to the European Court of Human Rights. The unblocking in Russia itself does not change anything, and if the decision is not in Russia’s favor, then compensation will have to be paid,” the lawyer explained.

Everything will depend on the desire of Pavel Durov to continue clashes with the Russian government and the executive system, adds the head of RosKomSvobody Artem Kozlyuk:

&#171;I don't think he will invest hisstrength in such legal disputes. Telegram has the right to compensation, but it is not a fact that the courts will accept these agreements as valid from a legal point of view.

According to the latest information, the telegram.org domain is no longer on the list of banned sites, however, Telegram-related subnets are still not excluded from the registry.

Recall, on June 18, Roskomnadzor unblocked the Telegram messenger in the Russian Federation, taking into account the willingness of the service’s leadership to cooperate in the fight against terrorism and extremism.