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Russian Embassy in France clarifies Durov’s situation
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The platform is influential in Russia and Ukraine
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Durov is expected in court on Sunday
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Bloggers call for protests in front of French embassies
PARIS, –
Pavel Durov, the Russian-French billionaire and founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, was arrested at Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening, TF1 TV and BFM TV reported, citing unnamed sources.
Durov travelled aboard his private jet, TF1 reported on its website, adding that an arrest warrant had been issued against him in France as part of preliminary police investigations.
Both TF1 and BFM said the investigation focused on the lack of moderators on Telegram and that police believed this situation allowed criminal activity on the messaging app to continue unhindered.
According to French media, Durov faces charges on Sunday.
The encrypted Telegram, with almost a billion users, is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union. It is considered one of the most important social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.
Telegram did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The French Interior Ministry and police did not comment.
Durov, a native of Russia, founded Telegram with his brother in 2013. He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on his social media platform VKontakte. He then sold the platform.
“I would rather be free than take orders from anyone,” Durov told US journalist Tucker Carlson in April about his departure from Russia and the search for a location for his company, which included stops in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has become the main source of unfiltered – and sometimes graphic and misleading – content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict.
Some analysts call the platform a “virtual battlefield” of war, used extensively by both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his officials, as well as the Russian government.
Telegram – which offers its users a way to evade official control – has also become one of the few places where Russians can access independent news about the war after the Kremlin tightened restrictions on independent media following its invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the embassy in Paris was investigating the situation surrounding Durov and called on Western non-governmental organizations to demand his release.
Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 after the app refused to comply with a court order giving state security services access to its users’ encrypted messages.
The action disrupted many third-party services but had little impact on Telegram’s availability there. However, the ban order sparked mass protests in Moscow and criticism from NGOs.
“NEUTRAL PLATFORM”
TF1 reported that Durov, who lives in Dubai, arrived from Azerbaijan and was arrested around 8 p.m.
Durov, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes at $15.5 billion, said some governments have tried to put pressure on him, but the app should remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics.”
However, Telegram’s increasing popularity has led to skepticism in several European countries, including France, over security concerns and concerns about data breaches.
Russia’s representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, and several other Russian politicians were quick on Sunday to accuse France of behaving like a dictatorship, the same criticism Moscow faced when it made demands on Durov in 2014 and tried to ban Telegram in 2018.
“Some naive people still do not understand that it is not safe for them to visit countries that are moving towards more totalitarian societies if they play a more or less visible role in the international information space,” Ulyanov wrote on X.
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, said after reports of Durov’s imprisonment: “It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re going to be executed for liking a meme.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who on Friday abandoned his US presidential campaign and endorsed Republican Donald Trump, said after the reports on X that the need to protect free speech had “never been more urgent.”
Several Russian bloggers called for protests in front of French embassies around the world on Sunday afternoon.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications.
