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Pável Dúrov, the Russian founder of the encrypted messaging app Telegram, was in Francereporting from Paris-Le Bourget Airport French TV channel TF1.
The 39-year-old billionaire weighs A search and arrest warrant was issued by the French Office for Minors (OFMIN), the national criminal investigation agency. According to preliminary investigation.
Dúrov, who launched Telegram with his brother Nikolai in 2013, is under investigation over the app’s lack of administrators, something he denies.
Specifically, he was accused of failing to take steps to prevent the criminal use of Telegram by certain users. Durov is accused of failing to cooperate with authorities on drug trafficking, child sexual content and fraud, which would make him an accomplice. According to French justice, these crimes.
In a statement to Russian media outlet RIA Novosti, his lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky equated the charges to accusing a carmaker of causing an accident or using its vehicles to commit a crime.
Agranovsky insisted that his client’s detention was “absolutely absurd” and constituted An attack on free speech.
Durov, for his part, has refused to cooperate with any state power to combat political dissent, extremism or crime, defending himself on the neutrality he believes the platform should provide.
“Humanity needs a neutral platform like Telegram that respects privacy and freedom People’s (…) In fact, it does not matter whether Telegram is used by the opposition or the ruling party. The rules are the same for all parties. In this way, we are impartial, “he said in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson in February.
Telegram offers protection to its users through exclusive encryption, with each group protecting up to 200,000 people, making it a useful tool for criminals and extremists. This is one of the reasons why the platform has grown. Blocked in countries like Iran, Indonesia, or Thailandand were subject to restrictions and fines in Spain, Germany, Brazil or the Netherlands.
Moscow accused Paris of trying to shut down the application, something the Kremlin had tried to do
After Durov was arrested in France, he had an unexpected defender: Russiaaccusing Paris of wanting to control free speech and seeking to shut down TelegramIf this is the purpose The French government will only attempt what the Kremlin has tried and failed to achieve.
Russian Ombudsman Tatiana Moskakovasaid French authorities had detained Durov in an effort to shut down the platform.
“It’s clear that the real reason for Pavel Durov’s arrest is an attempt to shut down Telegram, an internet platform that allows you to find out the truth about what is happening in the world,” he said on his Telegram channel.
According to Morskakova, Paris accuses Durov of “all the evils that have happened and are about to happen”because its goal is to “achieve complete control over free speech.”
Apologists seem to overlook that in March 2022, Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova was arrested for breaking into the country’s main TV news channel with a poster criticizing the invasion of Ukraine. In February 2023, he managed to flee Russia.
April 2023 A Moscow court sentences journalist and opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza Sentenced to 25 years in prison for criticizing Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
The most contradictory point in Morskakova’s message is that The Kremlin banned Telegram in Russia in 2018 after Durov refused to provide user dataThe ban was lifted three years later, and today the app is popular in Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.
It was in 2021, the year when Russia decided to cancel the platform, Durov obtained French citizenship. He also owns the United Arab Emirates and lives in Dubai.
Telegram currently has nearly 1 billion monthly users, with 350,000 new customers added every day.
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