Off the wire
• Slovenia, Qatar to expand cooperation on tourism, healthcare, education  • Majority of Democrats want Sanders to stay in race despite Clinton's lead: poll  • 500 million people at risk of contracting Zika in Americas: PAHO official  • Morocco designs approach to implement development plans  • U.S. stocks tumble amid earnings, falling oil  • Rwanda youth urged to venture into agribusiness  • U.S. dollar rises after sharp decline  • British manufacturing PMI falls to lowest level in three years  • Chicago agricultural commodities close lower  • Morocco launches new strategy to counter corruption  
You are here: 　 Home

Judge revokes WhatsApp suspension in Brazil

Xinhua, May 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

A Brazilian court on Tuesday overturned the decision to block the WhatsApp messenger application for 72 hours, as a punishment for not complying with police in a drug investigation.

According to daily O Globo, Judge Ricardo Múcio Santana de Abreu Lima, from a federal court in the northeastern state of Sergipe, accepted a petition by WhatsApp lawyers.

The decision was preceded on Monday afternoon by the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) that blocking the app was a "disproportionate response", which affected millions of users.

The decision by Santana de Abreu Lima means WhatsApp users on the five main cellphone operators, TIM, Oi, Vivo, Claro and Nextel, covering virtually the entire population will be able to use the service again.

On Monday, judge Marcel Maia Montalvao, also in Sergipe, said WhatsApp should be blocked for 72 hours after Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp, refused to cooperate in a criminal investigation into drug trafficking.

The federal police ordered Facebook to turn over the name of WhatsApp users, who allegedly arranged drug exchanges through the service.

Facebook has responded by saying this was impossible as WhatsApp is an encrypted service and does not have access to individual messages.

In March, a federal court ordered Facebook's president in Brazil, Diego Dzodan, to be jailed for 24 hours for the same reason. Endit