Upon landing at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, was arrested in France on 26th August. Pavel left Russia in 2014, claiming that Russia was “unable to keep up with the information age” after he refused to provide the Russian government with information on users involved in the Ukrainian revolution. Shortly after, he acquired French and UAE citizenship and stated he had no plans to return to Russia.
According to TF1, Durov was arrested by France on charges of using the platform to ‘support terrorist activities and pedophilia’, after refusing to provide user information. However, public sentiment on the arrest has been steeped in speculation, with many claiming a clamp on free speech and global powers’ tendency to control narratives.
A fact made difficult by Telegram’s encrypted messaging, and most people use Telegram as their source of information because the information comes directly from the field.
Why is Telegram a headache to global powers?
To begin, the most recent protests by the youth in Kenya have been greatly attributed to coordination done by social media users. X received critical acclaim for the ease of information dissemination and the ability to reach a large number of users at once.
Moreover, Telegram also played a key role as a citizen’s intelligence gathering and sharing platform. Telegram channels were used to coordinate and share sensitive information as the cases of extrajudicial killing intensified, allegedly sponsored by the regime. To date, none of the killer cops have been prosecuted.
Since the breakout of the war in Gaza, Telegram has been the main source of credible information on the IDF’s alleged genocide and massacre in the strip. Thousands of videos of the IDF massacring children have been posted on Telegram channels by journalists living in Gaza. So far, more than 100 journalists have been killed in Gaza alone in the IDF’s mission to stem the flow of information.
According to politics and war analysts, the most accurate information about the situation on the ground in Ukraine comes out on Telegram, and NATO can’t control it. Moreover, the departure from, and the decline of France’s military power in Africa has been largely attributed to Telegram. Africans organized all their protests, resistance, and everything else against the French occupation forces through Telegram.
Russia has released a statement condemning Durov’s arrest, claiming it is a political persecution. Director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Maria Zakharova said, “Russia sent a note demanding access to Durov, but France perceives his French citizenship as the primary one.”
In 2011, Durov said that the Russian government had requested him to cancel the accounts of anti-government figures on his social media platform. Durov not only did not follow but also publicly released a photo of “raising the middle finger to Putin” in the media, which received.
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, during an interview, said, “Some time ago, I asked Durov why he didn’t want to cooperate with law enforcement on serious crimes. “It’s a matter of principle,” he said. I told him, “That will cause serious problems in any country.” He believed that his biggest problems were in Russia, so he left, eventually obtaining citizenship or residency in other countries.
“He wanted to be a brilliant “citizen of the world,” living well without a homeland. *Ubi bene, ibi patria!* (Where it is good, there is my country!) He miscalculated. To all our common enemies now, he is still Russian—and therefore unpredictable and dangerous. Of a different blood. Not a Musk or a Zuckerberg (who, by the way, actively cooperates with the FBI). Durov needs to finally understand that, like the times, one does not choose their homeland…”
During an interview with Tucker Carlson in April, Pavel Durov alleged that the last time he was in the United States, the Secret Service tried to turn one of his engineers. “The last I was in the US, I brought an engineer working for Telegram, and there was an attempt to secretly hire my engineer behind my back by cyber security agents…they were curious to learn what open source libraries are integrated to the Telegrams App, the clients’ side and they were trying to persuade him to use certain open source tools that he would then integrate into the Telegram’s code, that in my understanding would serve as backdoors to enable governments to spy on the users.”
After the arrest of Durov, the founder of the YouTube competition – Rumble, Chris Pavlovski left Europe in fear. “I’m a little late to this, but for good reason — I’ve just safely departed from Europe. France has threatened Rumble, and now they have crossed a red line by arresting Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, reportedly for not censoring speech.
Rumble will not stand for this behavior and will use every legal means available to fight for freedom of expression, a universal human right. We are currently fighting in the courts of France, and we hope for Pavel Durov’s immediate release.” he said.
Edward Sowden, a former American NSA intelligence contractor and a whistle-blower, who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs in an X post said, “The arrest of Durov is an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association. I am surprised and deeply saddened that Macron has descended to the level of taking hostages as a means of gaining access to private communications. It lowers not only France but the world.”
