The president slammed the ruling as “inadmissible” and said it put the “freedom” of Brazilians at risk. BRASÍLIA: A Supreme Court judge in Brazil ruled to block popular messaging application Telegram nationwide, barring one of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s favorite communication channels, in a decision published Friday. Citing Telegram’s failure to comply with orders from Brazilian authorities and remove messages found to contain disinformation, Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered the app blocked immediately in Brazil, in a ruling dated Thursday and published Friday on the high court’s website. The decision comes as Bolsonaro gears up to seek reelection in October, facing a popularity slump and counting on Telegram to rally his base. “Telegram’s disrespect for Brazilian law and repeated failure to comply with countless court decisions... is completely incompatible with the rule of law,” wrote Moraes. He said the company had repeatedly refused to comply with rulings and requests from police, the Superior Electoral Tribunal and the Supreme Court itself. That includes a Supreme Court-ordered investigation into allegations against the Bolsonaro administration of using official communication channels to spread disinformation, he said. Bolsonaro has openly clashed with Moraes, who ordered him personally investigated in that case. The president slammed the ruling as “inadmissible” and said it put the “freedom” of Brazilians at risk. Moraes “failed to act against the two or three people that according to him should be blocked, so he decided to affect 70 million people,” Bolsonaro said. Earlier, Bolsonaro had tweeted a link to subscribe to his channel on Telegram — which was still operational in Brazil Friday afternoon. “Our Telegram informs people every day of many important actions of national interest, which many regrettably omit,” he said. “Welcome, and share the truth.” Bolsonaro’s minister of justice and security, Anderson Torres, said on Twitter that millions of Brazilians were being “suddenly wronged by an individual decision” and added that his ministry was studying “a solution to give back to the people the right to use the social network,” without specifying what measures he intended to adopt. Moraes’s ruling gave Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) 24 hours to suspend Telegram’s operations nationwide. The decision “will have big political and electoral repercussions,” tweeted political analyst and digital communications specialist Pablo Ortellado. “This could move one of the main game pieces of the campaign.” Founded by Russian-born tech entrepreneur Pavel Durov in 2013, Dubai-based Telegram is hugely successful in Brazil, where it has been downloaded on 53 percent of all cell phones. Durov apologized Friday to the Supreme Court in an Instagram post and blamed a “miscommunication” problem. “On behalf of our team, I apologize to the Brazilian Supreme Court for our negligence. We definitely could have done a better job,” he said. Bolsonaro, who has had various posts blocked on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for violating their rules on misinformation, has been eagerly encouraging his base to follow him on Telegram ahead of the October elections. He trails leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his likely opponent, in the polls.