According to media reports, the CEO of messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, was arrested at Le Bourget airport for violations related to the app.
Russia’s foreign ministry says it has sent a letter to France demanding access to the detained Russian billionaire Pavel Durovin round.
Spokesman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova says that since Durov also has French citizenship, France considers this to be Durov’s primary citizenship.
The Russian embassy in Paris accuses the French authorities of non-cooperation.
– We immediately asked the French authorities to tell us the reasons for the arrest and demanded that his rights be respected and that the Consular Services get to him. So far, France has refused to cooperate in this matter, the embassy says in a press release, according to Russian Ria Novosti.
In Russia, France has been accused of censorship because of the arrest.
France has not officially confirmed the arrest of the founder and CEO of messaging service Telegram. According to media reports, Durov was arrested at Le Bourget airport for violations related to the popular messaging app.
The Telegram application founded by Durov has been a particularly important messaging channel in Russia, Ukraine and former Soviet countries. It has nearly a billion users.
Telegram has become a kind of virtual battlefield of the Russian war of aggression. Both Ukrainian and Russian authorities, as well as war bloggers and media, use the application in their own communications.
Russia began restricting Telegram in 2018 after its parent company refused to give Russian security services access to the encrypted messages of the app’s users. The restrictions have had little effect on the possibilities of using the application in Russia.
Durov left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with Russian authorities’ demand to shut down opposition groups on VK, the community service he founded.
Sources: AFP, Reuters