Terrorism allegations – Telegram founder is seemingly the goal of Russian investigations | EUROtoday

The founding father of the web service Telegram, Pavel Durov, says he has been focused by the Russian justice system due to allegations of supporting terrorism. “Russia has opened a case against me for aiding and abetting terrorism,” Durov mentioned in his on-line service. “In their attempts to suppress the right to privacy and freedom of speech, the Russian authorities invent new pretexts every day to restrict Russians’ access to Telegram,” Durov added.

The founding father of the web service was born in Russia however lives overseas. He has Russian and French citizenship.

Although the Kremlin itself makes use of Telegram, Russian authorities have been making an attempt to dam the service for years. Together with the WhatsApp service from the US firm Meta, Telegram is the preferred brief message app in Russia. Attempts to encourage extra folks to make use of the state-supported Max service have to date had little success.

The investigations in opposition to Durow haven’t been formally confirmed. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov merely mentioned that Telegram refused to cooperate with the authorities and violated many rules.

Russian state media, citing the FSB secret service, reported that Durov’s refusal to cooperate with state authorities triggered a number of deaths in reference to terrorist assaults. The FSB had repeatedly requested Durow to grant the authorities entry to encrypted consumer information.

Accusations of terrorism have been more and more utilized in Russia because the starting of the Ukraine battle to take motion in opposition to authorities critics.