Written by Michael Thervil
Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images
Yesterday marked yet another sad day for not only the right to free speech but also human rights around the world. But it marks another assault on America’s 1st amendment because of suspected American involvement. Telegram Founder and CEO Pavel Durov who is a dual citizen of Russia and France was arrested yesterday in Paris for being complicit in drug trafficking, terrorism, money laundering, the trafficking of children, and other various crimes. Although he has not been directly or indirectly involved in any of these allegations or crimes; nor has he had any knowledge of these crimes, France issued a warrant for his arrest and he’s currently detained (behind bars).
The reason why he’s currently in French custody is because he decided not to turn over accounts or provide information on accounts of interest to law-enforcement agencies around the world. As you well know, Telegram, like Signal and Discord, has built their messaging platforms on the foundation of complete encrypted end to end user privacy. It was reported that the French authorities concocted and issued a warrant for the arrest of Pavel Durov 5 minutes before his plane landed at Le Bourget airport, in Paris France. Pavel Durov was born in Russia, but fled Russia because he didn’t want to be subjected to handing over user information and data to the Russian government.
Many observers around the world are wondering why French law enforcement decided to issue the warrant at this time. In doing so, it has led to speculation that the decision to issue this warrant for the arrest of Pavel Durov did not exclusively come from French law-enforcement authorities alone. Instead, they are speculating that the motivation to order the arrest of Pavel Durov came from the United States.
The reason for this speculation is because it was the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that was previously pressuring Pavel Durov to provide access to user information and messages from his platform. This is something to think about considering the war on the 1st Amendment that the United States has currently embarked on. Given the fact that the FBI has recently confiscated the passport of former United Nations Weapons Inspector now turned Journalist Scott Ritter and executed a raid on his home earlier this month.
Currently there is both a global outcry on the assault of Pavel Durov’s human right to free speech as well as on the silence of the United States on this issue considering that the U.S. doesn’t hesitate to apply sanctions on countries who they perceive to restrict their citizen’s right to exercise free speech. This apparent hypocrisy, of both the United States and the Collective West comes at a time where all facets of media, publications, and journalists believe that the U.S. government and government of other nations are forcing censorship upon them.
The claim made by not only French law-enforcement authorities but law-enforcement authorities throughout the Collective West is that Telegram's extreme focus on privacy and security allows the app to be “exploited by criminal groups”. However, this can be seen as a slippery slope of an argument. If the CEO of Telegram can be jailed for how its users use its product, then companies that manufacture firearms can be sued by the people who commit violent acts with their weapon systems. Providing another example, under this logic; the car manufacturer Ford, can be sued by the victims who are adversely affected by people who use their products to commit crimes such as hit-and-runs and drive-by shootings. But for many people around the world who either drive or love cars, that would be ridiculous. If Pavel Durov is convicted, he could receive up to 20 years in prison.
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