MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th January, 2021) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that he had heard of the US' threats to deprive the Telegram messenger of the opportunity to provide its services, adding it will be an interesting development.
On Sunday, the Coalition for a Safer Web, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that calls for the removal of extremist content from social media, filed a lawsuit against Apple urging it to delete the Telegram messenger from its App Store for failing to respond to threats of violence related to the January 6 Capitol riots. According to the organization, Telegram has been the "subject of derision for facilitating voices of violence and extremism" since its launch in 2013.
"I have already heard that they [the US] threatened Telegram to deprive it of the opportunity to provide its services, it will be interesting," Lavrov said at a press conference.
The top Russian diplomat recalled that the US was bound by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, as well as it is a party to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950, the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, a series of documents by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Charter of Paris for a New Europe of 1990 and the Charter for European Security of 1999.
"All these documents say that everyone has the right to free expression of free opinion. This right includes the freedom to seek, receive, disseminate all kinds of information and ideas, regardless of state borders, orally, in writing, or through the press, or artistic forms of expression, or in other ways of their choice," Lavrov added.
On January 6, protesters supporting US President Donald Trump stormed Capitol Hill in a bid to prevent Congress from certifying the presidential election victory of his opponent, which resulted in the deaths of five people and the launch of about 170 cases. In the aftermath of riots, social network companies like Facebook and Twitter banned Trump's accounts and stepped up their efforts to combat far-right extremist content. This prompted some people to migrate to Parler, which was eventually banned by Google, Apple and Amazon from their platforms, as well as Telegram. The latter also has recently seen a massive influx of people, including foreign leaders, after the WhatsApp messenger announced it would introduce privacy policy changes allowing it to share some of user data with its parent company.
