The arrest and indictment of Telegram founder Pavel Durov is a complex case that raises many human rights issues, the UN said on Tuesday, September 3.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights plans to produce a document that “will set out the parameters within which this kind of situation should be considered,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva. “This is a complex issue that raises many human rights issues,” she said.
The boss of the popular but controversial messaging app, who holds Russian, French and Emirati passports, was arrested in France on August 24 and banned from leaving French territory. “We are therefore following this case, and it is difficult for us to be more precise at this stage,” because the High Commission does not have access to “all the information,” the spokesperson added.
The case has caused a great deal of controversy, with supporters of the 39-year-old billionaire seeing the arrest as an attack on freedom of expression. Durov has received strong support from Elon Musk, the head of the social network X, who has just been blocked in Brazil for failing to combat disinformation.
The French justice system accuses Pavel Durov Durov of a whole series of offences related to the application. According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, he is notably charged with “refusing to communicate the information necessary for interceptions authorized by law” and complicity in offences and organised crimes via the platform: drug trafficking, criminality, fraud and money laundering in an organised gang.