Absurd charges of complicity in crimes are a cover for closing down free speech and information critical of Western regimes. It’s as simple and as tyrannical as that.
Telegram owner Pavel Durov could be held in France for years while an investigation is carried out. If found guilty, he then faces 10 years in jail. There are sinister echoes of the persecution of Julian Assange in this case.
Telegram founder and owner, Pavel Durov (39) was arrested on August 24 by French police officers as he stepped off his private jet that had landed in Le Bourget airport, north of Paris. He had flown from Azerbaijan.
After four days in custody, Durov was released on Wednesday on condition of paying a €5 million bond and not leaving France for the duration of a cybercrime investigation. Durov lives in Dubai where he has Emirati citizenship, in addition to Russian and French nationality.
The French authorities charge him with complicity in crimes ranging from administering a social platform that permits criminal organizations to conduct drug trafficking and distribution of child pornography. He is also charged with not cooperating with law enforcement to curb criminal networks. His defense counsel denies all charges and maintains that Telegram has abided by all European regulations governing digital media.
The whole affair smacks of drama and a draconian clampdown by the French authorities to intimidate free speech and independent media. The alleged crimes are designed to make the wider public repudiate Durov and his rights to due process.
Suspiciously, French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken out in public twice over the past week, claiming that he had no advance knowledge of Pavel’s arrest and that he had nothing to do with his arrest. Macron went on to proclaim France to be a country that champions free speech and an independent judiciary.
Macron’s rush to distance himself sounds like an alibi. According to French media reporting, Durov told arresting officers that he was traveling to meet with Macron for dinner. It does seem strange that the Telegram owner took the risk of flying to Paris even though he would have known French investigators were probing the social network platform for a pretext to pressure him.
Did Macron set the Russian-born entrepreneur up by personally assuring him that he would be free to travel? It seems that the arrest warrant was hurriedly concocted after the private jet entered French airspace. Again, it all smacks of an entrapment.
It has been reported that Macron and Durov met on previous occasions. The French leader has been lobbying the entrepreneur to move his Telegram base of operations to France from Dubai. The bestowing of a French passport in 2021 is believed to be part of the enticement. It is well known that Macron is trying to reinvent France as a hi-tech global hub.
The charges against Durov are not only draconian but also absurd. The notion of holding the owner of a social network platform as being responsible for or complicit in the content of the network is preposterous.
Why not arrest the owners of telephone companies based on the same logic? It’s ridiculous and indicates an ulterior motive.
Telegram was founded in 2013-2014 by Durov (and his older brother). He left Russia in 2014 because he refused to comply with Russian authorities on allowing access to the privacy of users. Over the years, Telegram has grown worldwide to become one of the major messaging apps with nearly one billion monthly users. It has gained a reputation for secure communications and fierce independence from governments.
Pavel told American journalist Tucker Carlson in an interview earlier this year that he has routinely been harassed by U.S. authorities to hand over the encryption keys of Telegram, which he has refused to do.
By contrast, Western-based competitor apps such as WhatsApp and Western-controlled internet companies are known to have relented to pressure from the U.S. and European authorities on allowing “backdoor access” to supposedly private communications between individuals and groups.
Having said that, however, the content of these Western apps is also tainted with crime networks and horrendously sordid material. Why shouldn’t Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk be arrested next on similar charges to those leveled at Pavel Durov?
The difference is that Telegram has refused to comply with Western state intelligence services as it previously did with Russian counterparts. A case can be made that the Telegram owner is a “free speech absolutist”.
Much more important than the marginal criminal use of Telegram (as all apps are prone to), is the preponderant use of the platform for disseminating independent news and analysis.
Telegram has gained an enviable reputation for its accurate information on the war in Ukraine. Numerous independent news channels have flourished on Telegram to bring reliable and critical information about the conflict. Unlike Western media and social network platforms that kowtow to Western governments and NATO propaganda, Telegram has enabled a much more informed view of the war that exposes the Western narratives as a sham. Defense of Ukrainian democracy? More like defense of a NeoNazi regime and defense of Western war economies.
The fact is Telegram has become a globally important independent media network that is not controlled by Western regimes. It is for this reason that it is in the cross-hairs for repression, not because of alleged criminal activity by its owner. The latter reason is a pathetic pretext.
At a time when the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia has entered a disastrous phase of defeat, the Western elite must shut down all and every critical media.
It is no coincidence that following the outrageous persecution of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange (five years in solitary confinement in a British dungeon) for exposing U.S. and NATO war crimes, we now see a surge in cases of cracking down on free media. American commentator Scott Ritter who has been a valued critic of the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, recently had his home raided by the FBI. Other independent journalists have been arrested or harassed in Britain, France, Germany and across Europe for their critical views on the war in Ukraine or the Western-supported Israeli genocide in Palestine. Western so-called democracies are increasingly using fascist jackboot attacks on independent journalism and freedom of thought.
The Western elites and their fascistic power cannot abide any criticism or dissent that is fatal to their charade of authority. Emmanuel Macron, with his pretensions of grandeur and brittle egotism, embodies the Western elite.
Pavel Durov is awaiting the outcome of a vague and nebulous cybercrime investigation that may take years to complete. After which he may be imprisoned for another 10 years and pay huge financial fines. France which claims to uphold the highest principles of free speech has just descended to hostage-taking of innocent people for the vile purpose of killing free speech and independence of thought.
August 31, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Human rights |
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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov did not strike any special arrangement with the Russian government, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Friday. The tech entrepreneur left Russia after a conflict with the authorities in 2014.
Durov, who is a citizen of four countries including France, was arrested in Paris last Saturday and accused of complicity in illicit activities by users of his messaging app. His supporters claim that Paris is trying to intimidate him into violating the privacy of Telegram clients and imposing stricter moderation of public content, which would align with French policies.
The billionaire, who is currently based in the UAE, left Russia in 2014, after law enforcement accused him of protecting terrorists by refusing to give Russian investigators access to suspects’ communications. He claimed that his platform was designed in a way that made such surveillance impossible.
The row effectively ended in 2020, when the Russian telecoms regulator announced that it no longer had any issues with Telegram. There were rumors at the time that company management and the Russian government had secretly come to an understanding.
”There was no deal between the Kremlin and Durov,” Peskov told journalists, when asked whether there was such a relationship.
Asked whether President Vladimir Putin met Durov in person, the presidential spokesman said to his knowledge no such encounter ever happened. Previously there were claims in some media that Putin and Durov had a meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan in mid-August. Peskov denied that earlier this week.
On Wednesday, Durov attended a court in Paris, which formally indicted him on a slate of charges and released him on a €5 million ($5.55 million) bond. He has been banned from leaving France while the case continues.
Durov faces a potentially lengthy prison term in France on charges of “administering an online platform” used by criminals and refusing to cooperate with authorities in their investigation. French President Emmanuel Macron has denied that the case against Durov is political in nature.
August 30, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Russia |
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Telegram founder Pavel Durov has been formally indicted by a French court, accused of being an accomplice in several crimes allegedly committed by users of his messaging app. After paying a fine of five million euros, Durov was released from prison, but he is banned from leaving France and could be arrested again in the future.
Durov was arrested in Paris after arriving at the local airport from Azerbaijan. The charges against him could lead to a sentence of up to ten years in prison, but a series of diplomatic pressures appear to be hampering the authoritarian plans of French officials. Durov, despite being Russian by birth, holds several passports and is a citizen of different countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Durov lived in Dubai for many years and developed deep economic and strategic ties with the UAE government. For this reason, the pressure from the Arab country for France to release him was massive. The UAE threatened to end military and economic cooperation agreements, which certainly raised concerns in the French government. In practice, it can be said that the UAE used its international position as an important commercial and diplomatic hub to help Durov face the tyranny of the French authorities.
It must be said that there is no solid argument to condemn Durov. Social media creators cannot be held responsible for what other users do on their platforms. If Durov provided the French authorities the keys to access Telegram’s internal codes, he would not only be helping to punish the criminals who use the app, but also violating the private data of millions of innocent users – in addition to giving the French government access to data shared by state officials, businessmen and military personnel who use Telegram.
If France were truly committed to values such as freedom and democracy, Durov’s arrest would never have happened. However, contemporary France is anything but democratic. Paris is becoming a dictatorship under Emmanuel Macron, who has repeatedly refused to recognize the electoral defeat of his party coalition, taking authoritarian measures similar to those of some autocratic regimes around the world.
Durov himself is a French citizen. If France were a democracy, it would be concerned about guaranteeing the individual freedoms of its citizens. However, even Middle Eastern Islamic countries such as the UAE, which are often described as “autocratic” by the West, are more respectful of democratic values than France – as seen in the UAE’s efforts to have Durov released from prison.
The most interesting fact about Durov’s case, however, is that some Western media outlets are trying to describe him as a kind of Russian “agent.” There is a narrative that Telegram is a Russian tool of “hybrid warfare.” Western propagandists are trying to mislead the public into believing the fallacy that Durov refuses to share data with the French authorities in order to supposedly “protect the Russians.” However, the truth is quite different.
Despite being born in Russia, Durov has always been an opponent of the Russian government. Ideologically libertarian, Durov has always had a Westernized view of his country’s politics, seeing Moscow as an enemy of individual freedom. He left his homeland in search of greater freedom in the West—and is now being persecuted by France, the country where Durov sought citizenship in the hope of finding greater freedom than in Russia.
Durov is now learning in the worst possible way that the “freedom” advocated by the West is just rhetoric. In France, where he expected to be “free,” Durov is being persecuted simply for upholding his libertarian values and refusing to share sensitive data with state authorities. Durov has never faced such brutal persecution in his own country, which shows that the level of violation of individual freedoms in the West is higher than in Russia.
It is not yet known what Durov’s future will be. He is not “free” yet, since Paris has ordered him to remain on French territory. The local authorities are trying to intimidate him, using psychological terror to make him reveal the Telegram’s codes. Banned from leaving France, Durov’s only hope may be to seek asylum in the French-based diplomatic facilities of a country of which he has citizenship.
Only one thing is certain for Durov: he is not safe in France, the country where he once believed he would find freedom.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.
August 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Human rights |
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France is extorting Pavel Durov for Telegram’s encryption codes so they can censor the messaging platform, Serbian lawmaker Aleksandar Pavic has claimed in an interview with RT.
Durov was detained on Saturday in Paris and charged with failing to cooperate with the French authorities in investigating serious crimes allegedly committed using Telegram.
“These are mafia tactics, let’s be very clear. They are trying to extort the encryption keys from him,” Pavic told RT in an exclusive interview.
“If Pavel Durov resists, I think [Telegram] has an even better future. If he doesn’t succumb to the pressure, to the blackmail,” the Serbian parliamentarian added, noting that Telegram downloads have surged since the arrest.
Should Durov give in, Russia will “warn the free world – which is no longer the West” – that Telegram has been compromised, Pavic said.
Had Durov been arrested in Russia, the West would have denounced Moscow as repressive, but it’s different when France does it, he added, describing it as a “totalitarian mindset.”
People around the world are tired of “Big Brother telling them what is right to read, what shouldn’t be read, what they should think and what they shouldn’t think,” he said, noting that he has been using Telegram for years precisely because of its relative lack of censorship.
According to Pavic, Durov’s arrest is just the latest attack on free speech, which began about two decades ago ahead of the US invasion of Iraq and intensified with the arrest of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who published evidence of US war crimes in 2010.
Since 2014 and the US-backed Maidan coup in Ukraine, the “demonization” of Russia has been used to censor anyone whose reporting goes against the mainstream media line, he added.
“Anyone’s fair game now,” Pavic told RT. “Anyone who opposes the Western, globalist, deep-state narrative.”
Although born in Russia and a Russian national, Durov also has UAE, French, and St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship. Both Russia and the Emirates have requested consular access, but have been rejected because Paris considers his French citizenship to take precedence.
Pavic was in Moscow for the BRICS Municipal Forum event. An RT and RT Balkans columnist, he represents a populist opposition party (We – Power of the People) that won 12 seats in the 250-member parliament last fall, but has since split into two factions.
With Macron due in Belgrade later this week, Pavic said he hopes Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic will back his criticism of Durov’s arrest with a practical step, such as suspending talks to buy Rafale fighter jets from France.
Full video interview at Odysee
August 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | France, United States |
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France’s chief rabbi, Haim Korsia, justified Israel’s brutal war on the Gaza Strip in a television interview on 26 August, urging the Israeli army to “finish the job.”
Korsia told French network BFM TV that he supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The rabbi described Israel’s indiscriminate strikes on the besieged enclave as “acts of war” and said all of Israel’s actions in the strip are necessary to “protect its nationals.”
“It’s an act of war that no country in the world would conduct like Israel is doing, and I have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in how Israel is conducting the fighting,” Korsia said in response to a question on the civilian casualties.
When asked if he was critical of Netanyahu’s policy in Gaza, he said, “I’m never uncomfortable with a policy that consists of defending one’s citizens.”
In response to a question on whether he condemns Israeli massacres against civilians as he condemned Israeli deaths on 7 October, the rabbi said, “They are not of the same order.”
A member of the French parliament, Aymeric Caron, blasted the rabbi’s comments, calling them an “apology for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
“Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia calmly declares that he supports the ongoing genocide in Gaza, that it is deserved, and makes clear his hatred of the Palestinians,” Caron added.
“These are crimes punishable by law … And here I thought religious men were supposed to defend moral values and the sanctity of life,” the MP went on to say.
The toll of confirmed deaths in the Gaza Strip has risen to 40,534, a majority of them women and children. Another 93,778 Palestinians have been wounded as a result of the war.
The Israeli army has repeatedly targeted schools and UN facilities housing displaced Palestinians.
Disease has spread across the besieged enclave due to the war. UN experts, the EU, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have all said Israel is using starvation as a weapon against the people of Gaza.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced in May that it has decided to seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a move backed by the French government. The ICC decision also includes warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammad Deif.
Israel is also being accused of committing genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
August 28, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | France, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Western governments are increasingly seeking to deepen their control of online platforms while looking to discredit those like TikTok and Telegram which they perceive to be beyond their control.
The mass adoption of the Internet has widely been seen as a positive phenomenon in encouraging greater openness and accountability in society.
Polling by Pew Research Center in 2022 demonstrates the largely helpful role citizens around the world attribute to the technology, with majorities of people in most countries approving of its impact. Citizens of Central and Eastern European countries like Poland and Hungary are especially approving of social media’s influence on democracy, with respondents claiming it helps them stay informed about world and local events.
The United States, however, is a notable outlier in the research firm’s survey, with 64% of Americans saying social media has had a mostly negative effect on democracy and 79% saying it has created greater political division.
The finding comes as the role of social media and the Internet has increasingly been vilified in US society, with a panic over the alleged deleterious effect of online disinformation in politics. The height of the Russiagate conspiracy theory during the presidency of Donald Trump represented perhaps the high-water mark for the trend, but Western lawmakers continue to stoke concern over online content to justify government intervention and even outright bans on some platforms.
This weekend’s arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, then, can be seen as the latest development in the trend after Durov provoked the ire of Western officials earlier this year by revealing the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s attempts to install a backdoor in the popular encrypted messaging application.
“This attempt to break down communications and free speech around the world, I think, is a dangerous trend,” warned host Steve Gill on Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program Monday. “We just saw the CEO of Rumble… fled to avoid prosecution on whatever trumped up charges they may come after him. So this is a big issue. It is a big story. And I’ve been interested that the US media isn’t paying much attention to it. They should be.”
“It’s notable that, of course, Durov was arrested on allegations and is still being held, though he hasn’t been convicted for any crimes,” noted independent journalist John Jackman.
“The investigation has alleged, essentially, that the messaging platform Telegram has been used for fraud, drug trafficking, money laundering, and a coterie of other offenses. Now, what’s interesting about this is basically what the French authorities are saying is that Durov himself is responsible for any abuse that happens on that platform.”
Western authorities have long resented Telegram, which is resistant to the kind of surveillance and content moderation imposed on other online platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or X. Telegram’s relative freedom allows dissidents to thrive and users to share information from alternative perspectives, but authorities have accused the platform of being used to facilitate myriad crimes and abuses.
Recent years have seen Western governments take increasing steps to influence the flow of information online through the implementation of moderation regimes and, more recently, the banning of TikTok. Figures such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and X CEO Elon Musk have become more or less amenable to authorities’ attempts to exert control over their platforms, but Jackman argued that Durov has continued to chart his own course.
“Is Elon in trouble?” Jackman asked. “Well the answer is, if he stays on the right side of US foreign policy then he should be fine and continues to advocate for things like overthrowing the government of Venezuela, staying on the right side of the conflict in Ukraine, not cozying up to Russia too much, and so on. And then, of course, with Meta and Mark Zuckerberg, there’s absolutely no issue.
“One of the striking aspects of Durov’s arrest is that the French authorities actually waited until he landed to even file a warrant,” Jackman said, noting that French officials did not make the Telegram founder aware that he was wanted until he was already en route to France. “He had absolutely no indication that anything was coming. This was actually the same thing that happened with [Venezuelan businessman] Alex Saab, and it’s clear that France wanted to get their man and ensure that there was absolutely no chance of him evading the dragnet.”
Jackman called the tactic “draconian” and lamented Western governments’ attempts to repress their own citizens.
“What [censorship] means is that you’re weak, basically,” he claimed. “When you have to censor speech, when you have to be able to have the power to limit what people can say, then that means that you’re operating in a world where you’re scared of the facts, where you’re scared of truth.”
“We’ve seen this not only in contemporary and modern times, but we’ve also seen this throughout history: when great governments, empires, or nations start to lose their ability to actually govern effectively… you see these crackdowns on speech to start to try to limit the fact that the people can point out that the emperor has no clothes,” he continued. “And I think that’s exactly what we’re seeing.”
“The reason why they’re arresting people like Durov and not Elon Musk is fundamentally because the tentacles of law enforcement and intelligence agencies specifically have not, are not able to seep their way into applications like Telegram the way they are X or the Meta platforms. And so I think this is more of an issue about controlling the broader narrative rather than it is pursuing any specific types of criminal activity.”
August 27, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Human rights |
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Charges against Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France show that the West has abandoned the values it championed just a few years ago, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said.
The 39-year-old Russian was detained by French authorities on Saturday, after arriving in Paris from Azerbaijan by private jet. Durov also has the passports of France, the UAE and St. Kitts and Nevis.
Speaking on a newscast on Monday evening, Vucic said that Durov’s case was “interesting” and compared him to the persecution of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
“Back in 2018, when Russia put some mild legal pressure on him, some 26 groups from the West signed a petition to the Russian state to stop violating his freedom. Fast forward five or six years, and it’s perfectly normal [for them] to have him arrested and want to shut down Telegram in the West,” Vucic said.
“Everything has gone topsy-turvy, reality itself has been changed to fit their interests.”
France on Monday revealed the laundry list of preliminary charges against Durov, accusing the Telegram mogul of “facilitating” alleged illegal activities on his platform – ranging from drug dealing and money laundering to child pornography – by refusing to cooperate with French investigators going after an unnamed third party.
President Emmanuel Macron has defended the arrest, insisting that charges against Durov were “in no way a political decision.”
X owner Elon Musk, American journalist Tucker Carlson and Silicon Valley investor David Sacks have denounced Durov’s arrest as an attack on the freedom of speech.
Snowden, a whistleblower who revealed the extent of NSA spying on Americans and foreign leaders back in 2012, has accused France of holding Durov “hostage” in order to access private communications on Telegram.
Vucic brought up Durov’s situation in the context of the US and the EU criticizing Serbia for allegedly persecuting political opposition. According to the Serbian president, the EU routinely beats up and arrests protesters by the hundreds, while Belgrade is far more tolerant of outright riots.
“It’s all upside-down!” Vucic said. “When you allow the greatest of liberties, you’re a dictator. The fewer freedoms exist, the more they speak about them.”
August 27, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | European Union, France, Human rights |
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The arrest of Pavel Durov marks a new low point on the scumline of the side of the bath – the tub being western democracies and the line being their desperation to stay in power at the costs of controlling social media. Durov, who owns Telegram and lives in Dubai, could be in jail for months and possibly years on the trumped-up charges which the French state has conjured up simply because he refuses to allow any government to have a back door into Telegram. He has fought this tooth and nail for years with the west, in particular the U.S., playing every dirty trick in the book to get access to the platform for its own nefarious purposes – to destroy opposition figures, their strategies etc. – rather than what it is dressed up to be, identifying terrorists and international criminals.
As the UK ponders how its own state has sunk to a new totalitarian level in recent days with the arrest of its citizens who merely like a posting on a social media platform, the West has arrested this French Russian dual national genius who is charged with the crimes of those criminals active on Telegram. And so charges of terrorism and trafficking in minors, drugs and whatever else they can find on the platform will be made against him as someone abetting in the crimes. Of course, the same rules will not be levelled against Elon Musk who surely has criminals on his platform or for that matter any of the other social media platforms.
But how many of these platforms are also taking the same stand as Durov? We are led to believe that most of them aren’t but in light of his arrest we should assume that many of them have already allowed some sort of access to them for the deep state. Elon Musk likes to brag about his refusal to comply with the EU’s demands that he “moderates” who he allows onto X, adding that other social media platforms accepted the deal offered to him by Brussels: comply with our requests and we grant you some leniency on future antitrust fines. This offer, which he claims was happily accepted by other platforms is as close as you can get to the EU offering a brown envelope stuffed full of cash to a man in a pub. It’s a bribe and gives a clue as to how anti-democratic the EU is and how it operates in the shadows.
The French arrest however goes deeper in that we can assume that it was not France operating alone to nab Durov. We can assume that the FBI and CIA had probably pushed Macron to do this appalling dirty work but perhaps also Israel had a hand in it. Just recently, Netanyahu complained that data which was stolen from the government was being exchanged on Telegram and asked Durov to step in and retrieve it. He got no reply. Did Mossad have a hand in the arrest of Telegram’s boss? It seems credible given that it is hard to believe that Durov would fly into French airspace eyes wide open. Was it a kidnapping operation to get his plane and his pilot to land in Paris? French TV channel TF1 said Dubai-based Durov had been travelling from Azerbaijan and was arrested at around 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Saturday 24th of August but did not state whether the plane’s ultimate destination had been France.
The details around the arrest are very sketchy, but according to Reuters, Durov, whose fortune was estimated by Forbes at $15.5 billion, said some governments had sought to pressure him but the app should remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics”.
Another question which arises from the arrest is whether it is an international effort by western countries led by the U.S. – with Israel very much part of it – to test the waters for other arrests. Pundits have been dismissed as conspiracy theorists for weeks now suggesting Elon Musk will be arrested at some point, or charged in his absence, by UK authorities for some of the more controversial posts he has made about the political situation in the UK, or even by the EU which appears to have started a legal battle with him after he refused to respond to two letters sent to him by a French European Commissioner. Perhaps even the Democrats in the U.S. might play the same card given that Musk has lost all credibility as a neutral player in U.S. politics after he has so openly supported Trump who has promised him a position in a new government if he were to enter the Oval Office. There is no such thing really as free speech. It comes at a very high price for those who want to protect and cherish it and now France will test the political landscape to see how the arrest of Durov will affect Macron’s ratings. The French president has used outstandingly poor judgment in the past in calling for parliamentary elections immediately after EU ones which gave so much power to far-right groups, so he seems to be good at falling on his own sword. He may well have factored that Durov does not have the popularity of say Assange who didn’t stir so much political anger when he was banged up for years in a filthy, dank cell in the UK on trumped up charges from the U.S.
What is especially worrying is that locking up powerful people who have huge followings on the internet is becoming a trend which people are getting used to. The war between those who want to control the perceived truth and those who hold the actual one is hotting up. Scott Ritter, Andrew Tate, Richard Medhurst all arrested within days of one another, while Musk himself shuts down Egyptian comedian Bassem Youseff who had 10m followers on X. What we are witnessing is a new level of desperation that western elites are more afraid than ever after wasting hundreds of billions of dollars in Ukraine and starting a world war in the Middle East that voters have no confidence any more in their decision-making, as they, the public, struggle more and more to pay for groceries or even heat their houses. It’s a new milestone in the blind dogma of elites to resort to tactics which we would have scorned China or North Korea for using just a few years ago. It’s a new level of panic which we haven’t seen before.
August 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | CIA, European Union, FBI, France, Human rights, Israel, UK |
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Telegram abides by EU laws and its founder, Pavel Durov, “has nothing to hide,” the company said after Durov was arrested in Paris. Telegram said that it is “awaiting a prompt resolution” of the situation.
Durov was taken into custody at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday, immediately after arriving from Azerbaijan by private jet. According to French media, prosecutors in Paris plan to charge the 39-year-old with complicity in drug trafficking, pedophilia offenses, and fraud, arguing that Telegram’s insufficient content moderation, its strong encryption tools, and its alleged lack of cooperation with police allow criminals to flourish on the app.
Telegram dismissed these arguments on Sunday, stating that the company follows EU laws and that its content-moderation policies are “within industry standards.”
“Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe,” the statement continued, calling it “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”
“Almost a billion users globally use Telegram as means of communication and as a source of vital information,” the company concluded. “We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation.”
Telegram is headquartered in Dubai, although the company appointed a Belgian legal representative earlier this year to manage its compliance with EU law. Telegram has also complied with the bloc’s anti-Russian sanctions by blocking access to Russian news outlets, including RT.
However, Durov has consistently refused to hand over user data to law enforcement agencies, or to install so-called ‘backdoors’ so that these agencies can surveil conversations on the app. Speaking to RT on Sunday, Durov’s former spokesman suggested that French authorities could have made the arrest on behalf of the US, after Durov publicly accused American intelligence agencies of pressuring him into giving them access to Telegram user data.
August 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Human rights, United States |
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Florian Philippot, the leader of France’s Patriots (Les Patriotes) party, has slammed the government of French President Emmanuel Macron as “lunatics” over the detention of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov.
According to French media, the Russian entrepreneur, who also has French and UAE citizenship, was detained at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday and is set to appear in court on Sunday evening. The French authorities had reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Durov, arguing that insufficient moderation allows for Telegram to be widely used by criminals.
“France offers its tyrannical face to the world,” Philippot said of Durov’s arrest in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday. “We must free ourselves from these lunatics,” he added, referring to Macron’s government.
The politician also wondered if X owner and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX “Elon Musk is [also] thrown in jail if he sets foot in France, for disobeying the European DSA (Digital Services Act) censorship regulations.”
The head of Russia’s Safe Internet League, Ekaterina Mizulina, suggested earlier that the French authorities hadn’t acted independently in their decision to detain Durov. “It is obvious that the arrest is an attack on TON (a blockchain-based platform originally developed by Telegram’s creators) in which major Russian companies have invested. That is, in part, a continuation of the US sanctions policy” against Russia, she said.
Also on Sunday, the deputy speaker of the Russian parliament, Vladislav Davankov, called upon the French authorities to release Durov. The tech entrepreneur’s arrest “could be politically motivated and used to gain access to the personal information of Telegram users,” which Moscow cannot allow, he warned in a post on Telegram.
August 25, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Human rights, Russia |
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The US has violated its own constitutional freedoms by forcing its NATO ally France to arrest Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, American investor David Sacks has suggested.
Writing on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, Sacks slammed the detention of Durov at a Paris airport, reportedly on charges related to his alleged complicity in fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, and promoting terrorism.
In an apparent nod to the rumored US role in the arrest, Sacks wrote: “Using allied countries to circumvent First Amendment protections is the new Rendition.” The US Constitution expressly protects freedom of speech and makes no distinction between citizens and people from other countries.
In April, Sacks denounced a US law that would ban the video-sharing platform TikTok if its China-based developer ByteDance refused to sell it within 12 months. At the time, the investor suggested that after the crackdown on TikTok, Telegram, X and the video platform Rumble could end up in Washington’s crosshairs.
Meanwhile, the French move to arrest Durov was also criticized by Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk, who launched the hashtag #FreePavel, suggesting that the pressure on freedom of speech could worsen. “POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme,” he quipped. He also agreed with a user who wondered if X could be the next to come under fire.
In an interview with conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson which was released several months ago, Durov recalled that he had been getting “too much attention” from US law enforcement agencies while he was in the country. He said that while he was not under any legal scrutiny, he had to regularly deal with US authorities eager to get more insight into how Telegram worked.
The tech entrepreneur also claimed that law enforcement had attempted to recruit one of his employees to install a backdoor in the messenger that would allow them, or any other government, to spy on Telegram users.
August 25, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Human rights, United States |
1 Comment
Pavel Durov’s arrest is part of a broader crackdown on truth-seekers and freedom of speech in the West. According to Hong Kong-based political analyst Angelo Giuliano, Western elites are attempting to exert total control over the media narrative, as he explained to Sputnik.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested shortly after landing at Bourget airport near Paris late on Saturday and taken into custody by the French authorities.
“There is actually an oppression of journalists and freedom of speech in the West and especially in the EU,” Angelo Giuliano, a Hong Kong-based political and financial analyst, told Sputnik, commenting on Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s arrest in France.
Giuliano also pointed to the FBI’s raid on the home of Scott Ritter, a former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer, and mentioned that late Chilean-American journalist Gonzalo Lira died while in Ukrainian custody.
The analyst also drew attention to the arrest of independent journalist Richard Medhurst by British police on August 15 at London’s Heathrow Airport. The journalist known for his critical coverage of the US, British and Israeli role in the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza, was arrested under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act (2000).
When it comes to Durov, the Telegram founder is accused of allegedly enabling criminal activities through insufficient moderation of the platform, the French press claims, adding that he faces up to 20 years behind bars.
In his April interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, Durov suggested that he is a target for Western intelligence services. He said that US cybersecurity officials previously attempted to create a backdoor in his app. Durov stressed that such a backdoor would enable tighter government control over social media platforms.
“I wouldn’t be surprised that they would try to get their hands on Telegram, to strike a deal with Telegram saying, well, we release you, you give us a price and maybe we can buy you,” Giuliano said, presuming that the arrest serves as a sort of “bargaining chip.”
Freedom of speech has become very “inconvenient” for the West, according to the pundit: “What they say clearly at the EU is that they need to control the narrative, because that’s everything. The narrative you control controls the mind of the people.”
Giuliano noted that just three years ago, Durov became a French citizen, indicating that the Telegram founder was in good standing with the French government. In 2023, French media reported that Paris had chosen “an exceptional and highly political procedure” to grant Durov citizenship.
This abrupt shift in the French authorities’ stance has raised questions, Giuliano pointed out.
The pundit suggests that Durov’s arrest rings alarm bells for people like Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk: “Keep in mind that Elon Musk hasn’t actually complied with EU regulation, and in reality he would be de facto also another target.”
The arrest of the Telegram CEO is “really a red flag overall for journalists and for whoever is actually spilling the truth, inconvenient truth,” Giuliano concluded.
August 25, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | European Union, France, Human rights |
2 Comments
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