The assault on Free Speech or attack on Paedophilia and Terrorism? > Telegram's Pavel Durov arrested in France

 

Telegram messaging app CEO Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

Pavel Durov, Franco-Russian billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at the Bourget airport outside Paris, French media reported, citing unidentified sources, and is set to appear in court Sunday. Russian-born Durov, 39, founded Telegram with his brother in 2013, and the encrypted messaging app is influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union.

Issued on: 25/08/2024 - 04:17

3 min

By:FRANCE 24

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Telegram chief executive Pavel Durov is expected to appear in court Sunday after being arrested by French police at an airport near Paris for alleged offences related to his popular messaging app, sources told AFP.

The Franco-Russian billionaire, 39, was detained at Le Bourget airport north of the French capital on Saturday evening, one of the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Durov had arrived from Baku, in Azerbaijan, another source close to the case said.

France's OFMIN, an office tasked with preventing violence against minors, had issued an arrest warrant for Durov in a preliminary investigation into alleged offences including fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organised crime and promotion of terrorism, one of the sources said.

Durov is accused of failing to take action to curb the criminal use of his platform.

"Enough of Telegram's impunity," said one of the investigators, adding they were surprised Durov came to Paris knowing he was a wanted man.

France ‘refusing to cooperate’, says Russia

The Russian embassy in Paris on Sunday accused French authorities of "refusing to cooperate" after Durov’s arrest.

"We immediately asked French authorities to explain the reasons for this detention and demanded that his rights be protected and that consular access be granted. Up to now, the French side is refusing to cooperate on this question," the embassy said in a statement reported by Ria Novosti news agency.

Responding to the news of Durov’s arrest, Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president on Sunday said Telegram’s founder had “miscalculated” by fleeing Russia and thinking that he would never have to cooperate with the security services abroad.

Medvedev related a conversation he had with Durov several years ago in which Medvedev told him that if he did not want to cooperate with law enforcement agencies,  he would have problems in any country.

Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia's Security Council, said Durov wanted to be a 'brilliant "man of the world who lives wonderfully without a Motherland".

"He miscalculated," Medvedev said. "For all our common enemies now, he is Russian – and therefore unpredictable and dangerous."

Platform of 'privacy'

The encrypted messaging app, based in Dubai, has positioned itself as an alternative to US-owned platforms, which have been criticised for their commercial exploitation of users' personal data.

Telegram has committed to never disclosing any information about its users.

In a rare interview given to right-wing talk show host Tucker Carlson in April, Durov said he got the idea to launch an encrypted messaging app after coming under pressure from the Russian government when working at VK, a social network he created before selling it and leaving Russia in 2014.

He said he then tried to settle in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco before choosing Dubai, which he praised for its business environment and "neutrality".

People "love the independence. They also love the privacy, the freedom, (there are) a lot of reasons why somebody would switch to Telegram", Durov told Carlson.

He said at the time that the platform had more than 900 million active users.

By basing itself in the United Arab Emirates, Telegram has been able to shield itself from moderation laws at a time when Western countries are pressuring large platforms to remove illegal content.

Telegram allows groups of up to 200,000 members, which has led to accusations that it makes it easier for false information to spread virally, as well as for users to disseminate neo-Nazi, paedophilic, conspiratorial and terrorist content.

Competitor messaging service WhatsApp introduced worldwide limits on message forwarding in 2019 after it was accused of enabling the spread of false information in India that led to lynchings.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)

Edward Snowden  @Snowden

·Aug 25

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 for gaining access to private communications. It lowers not only France, but the world.

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European Courts Lagging Behind Europe in It's Growing Concern for Islamization

Austrian lecture slamming Prophet Mohammed

for marrying 6yo is hate speech – EU court

FILE PHOTO © Global Look Press / ZUMAPRESS.com

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that an Austrian lecturer is guilty of disparaging Islam, after the woman likened the Prophet Mohammed to a pedophile for marrying a six-year-old girl.

The lecturer known only as Mrs E.S. had already been convicted by an Austrian judge and fined €480 ($548) for her lecture. And now the ECtHR has upheld the ruling. The Strasbourg-based seven-judge panel stated on Thursday that her comparing Prophet Mohammed to a pedophile goes “beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate,” and that the Austrian court was right in “classifying them as an abusive attack which could stir up prejudice and threaten religious peace.”

The woman had unsuccessfully appealed the decision to the Austrian Supreme Court before taking her case to the ECtHR. She argued that what the court saw as inflammatory remarks insulting the Islamic faith was meant to reignite a public debate on child marriages.

She hosted “Basic Information on Islam” seminars in 2008 and 2009, during which she lectured the members of the right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) on the principles of the Islamic religion and its key figures. During one of her lectures, Mrs E.S. stated that marrying prepubescent girls makes Prophet Mohammad no different than a child predator.

“A 56-year-old and a six-year old?... What do we call it, if it is not pedophilia?” the woman reportedly said, referring to the marriage between the Prophet and Aisha, who is believed to have been six or seven when the marriage was arranged, and nine when it was consummated. Some modern scholars, however, dispute that timeline, arguing that Aisha was at least 15 at the time. 

Some modern scholars are trying to revise history to hide who the real Mohammed was.

When convicting Mrs E.S. of deprecating religion, the ECtHR pointed out that it had “comprehensively assessed the wider context” of her statement and “carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected.”

So, political correctness trumps truth every time in the EU.

The panel argued that the expressions the woman used to describe Prophet Muhammed were “not phrased in the neutral manner” and thus cannot be considered a legitimate contribution to the public debate on the sensitive topic of child marriages.

The court also dismissed the lecturer’s claim that the Austrian courts failed to consider the subject matter of her statements.

And then proceeded to ignore the subject matter of her statements. There is so much in Islam that should be debated. Aside from the example Mohammed set in taking 9 y/os to bed, he further gave permission to Muslims to do what they like with non-Muslim girls who are under their power. Rape, slavery, it's all good!

Devout Islam is madness, nothing less, and doesn't deserve to be protected by European courts.