on the, the, the founder of the global, a popular telegram app, is reportedly detained in france. in the last interview, before his arrest and hobbled during, reveal to us security agencies were pressuring him to violate the privacy of the platforms, users. we got too much attention from the 3 at the i, the security agencies, wherever we came to the u. s. times i think the attack is coming neither from the european union, nor from france. it's most likely an attack from the united states. pub, older avs, former press secretary says washington has long been after a telegrams founder and might be behind his arrest, a tune for his exclusive comments to r. t plus cab deals of

a shrine used by academic romanian followers of ukrainian orthodox church. that's in band to play the government, the live in the russian capital. i'm rachel ruble. this is r t international crack down on free speech. just one of the reactions in the news that russian tech type couldn't pop under off has been arrested in france. the telegram founder is allegedly accused of not giving security services access to private information on the social media platform. durham has reportedly been investigated for complicity and drug trafficking, fraud and crimes against children. earlier our t shirt davinsky took my colleague the union o'neill through the details, and this is a report from french tv stations who say that they've got source is close to the investigation. his play will probably will do explain the arrived in paris on

saturday evening and he had just switched the towel not getting off the plane. but apparently he was detained by the french, all star t's now according to one source close to the investigation. the reason they show that i had released this warrant for him and arrest him on the french sword is because telegram is seen as being the go to go to ask for a criminal activities organized crime at full the last few years. now you mentioned that some of the crime is that he could be facing charges over they say, is money laundering for this is a drug trafficking crimes against children. these are incredibly serious crimes. it's expected that he's going to go before a judge on sunday in front and is unlikely to be released from pre trial detention because of obviously the fact who he is, the pharmacy has his ability to leave the country and perhaps avoid justice. they

are expecting that he will be reminded in custody until any trial, and that could be many, many months away. the suggestion, if he's found guilty, he could spend up to 20 years in prison. now, the russian embassy in paris has said that it is looking for clarity on the situation do, of course, as a russian citizen, he also has joint nationality and he's a french citizen too. we're dealing with the situation. charlotte, that then it's happening in front of the country, which shap promotes itself as a beacon of democracy in a, in a dark world. all that kind of thing. freedom of speech is par online yet. he's being treated in such a high profile way as, as a criminal, like directly as if he's accused of doing nice things himself. but he's not. yeah, let's be clear that he's not being accused of actually carrying out any of these activities. the basis of this warranty is that because telecom missing is don't

motor rating enough of it's not know providing information to governments in the west, but he's essentially complicit in these crimes simply for being the owner and co founder of telecom. it's pretty incredible situation now. we know that he's been coming on that massive pressure from western governments to share information, talent, golf, which is one of the most popular movie downloaded apps in the world, are close to a 1000000000 uses slides. so in this idea that is gonna end ends encryption, that it's safe to send messages on, and telecoms website says it does not pass information to governments. all of these the big take points when people are using to look at the app. so he's talked about the pressure he's been coming and recently he sat down with us host talk a calls and, and talk specifically about what the us authorities have been doing and how they've been trying to persuade him to pass on information. let's just have to listen to

what he said in that interview. we got too much attention from the, the, at the i, the security agencies, wherever we came to the us. i brought an engineer that is working for telegram and there was an attempt to secretly hire my engineer behind him and back by cyber security officers officers leave as of january, the 6th we received a letter from i, i believe, clinical its 9. yeah, of the democratic side and they requested that we would share all the data we had in relation to what they called this uprising. the letter seemed very serious and the letter said, you know, if your fail to comply with this request, he will be in violation with the us constitution. let's talk a call soon. reacted very quickly to the reports of papa through ups arrest,

saying that he's been locked away in. susie asked a 3 by a member of nato that this is the west that has locked him up because he's refusing to sense of the truth. and i think that's really interesting is that what we've got here is western government putting out a warrant for this big tech mogul, an essentially putting him behind boss before he's even been able to have his day in court. now there's been lots of other reaction as well in and coming from influential americans or consumed by the developments in this case. fronts just arrested pablo during founder and ceo of the encrypted uncensored telegram platform. the need to protect free speech has never be more urgent. pos e. it's 2030 in europe, and you're being executed for liking a mean. it's telegram today, it will be ex tomorrow. free speech is under attack one over the world. why are

people's opinions and voice is such a threat? courageously resolve differences freely in the public square will. of course we know that dog has actually worked with governments in the west to acquiesce to the demands he address to the demands of the e. u to bon off seeds folding telegram. if you have a i. e, you based number, you cannot get access to our new services via that app. and it's interesting that now he is in fonts in the way he could find himself behind the boss. as pavel jobs arrest makes waves online. the number of people downloading the telegram app has skyrocketed. well, we got exclusive reaction from mister durham, former press secretary here in moscow. yes, could i get a role? it was of course, a complete shock, and i got a call from my people when i was already asleep. may they called and asked why i

was not online instead the door off was arrested. so it's a hard time for us now. the which we haven't experienced anything like this even while working with people. so it's a big mystery why he disregarded his own safety and decided to land in paris. and despite the fact that he didn't know most likely that there was a warrant out for his arrest. but nevertheless, that only suggest 2 things that come to mind. either he did not know that a warrant for his arrest was being prepared in know, or if we believe differential media or the warrant for his arrest was issued 5 minutes before his plane landed in that way. either he knew about it, but didn't think it would be that serious difficulty. probably thought he was a little above friends. justice in fact, unless telegram has tried to comply with the laws of the jurisdiction where it is present to him that the unit telegram also complied. with the requirements of sanctions, legislation to block channels, including by the way of a russian media outlets such as r t. the reason is probably much deeper than that to get out. i think the attack is

coming neither from the european union, nor from france. it's most likely an attack from the united states, which is, which has been after people do are off for a long time and door off as always talked about it. and he said, for example, in an interview with tucker carlson, so that he and his employees are under pressure, or at least there's some kind of surveillance conducted by the f b i to have them. i think the root causes are there 3 of them. so it doesn't make any sense to discuss the intentions of differential authorities who arrested him because they don't play any role here at all for me. yeah. yeah, the story that he has, i think that this arrest and this whole situation means only the best for telegrams, reputation. look right now. even this hasn't been out in the process yet. i've done a little bit of research on the monitors that are available when you to a telegram downloads have really skyrocketed by some metrics. it's already the number one downloaded app in the world, even though it's only been 24 hours, even less than 24 hours since the news broke out. does it mean as soon as he was

arrested? for example, prominent figures such as for example, the loan musk and others spoke out a key and the hash tag free door of pablo door. oscar that reached the top of twitter trans. even it speaks to his exploding popularity, which naturally converts to product of popularity. the door, well, i mean, we're probably talking about telegram approaching a 1000000000 users in a general sense. i think that in the next couple of days we will see that we will overcome this barrier of 1000000000 users. this is, of course, the most famous dry sand effect among marketers. it will affect the popularity of telegram it'd be how will this popularity be used by telegram itself further to me or for example, by the authorities? what should we do not know yet? but naturally we can now say unambiguously that for telegrams popularity. there is no better story than its founders arrest. the well as the cross live now to member of the alternative for germany,

party and lawyer doing our back good are good to have you on the program with us up front officials have not yet publicly explained their arrest of possible drugs. as a lawyer, what are your thoughts on the case? well, i see this is a particularly worried example of the wind, a general trend. and the change is in the direction of sense of shape. and so the restrictions on freedom of speech past the most important piece of legislation, cost, i find the p a u d n a resubmit is the so called digital services act. officially, it's been designed to regulate what's called a hate speech and this information campaigns. and it places the owners on online platforms such as kind of drawn all facebook on twitter

uh, tools such content uh, fold out cash flows, and therefore a back to be off as sensors. so the idea or is i just didn't know what quite news was. hate speech and this information as they're creating and is this incentive to room a to uh, remove as much content and restrict freedom is speech as far as possible. so it's part of a wind watering in the little trade in the west. so good our door of affordably could face up to 20 years in prison on charges related to a alleged criminal activity that on his telegram app. so explained this to us, how can he beheld personally responsible for what others do on the platform that he created a well, it's a simple question of law. is it all make us it?

he is, the whole european union is 19, although forwarded to some of the states pauses or no uh, fish whose service provider is responsible for bailey, to regulate for service. uh, the content is on that platform, then that can be done because it's a major restriction over basic democratic rights named the freedom of speech. but, you know, no, no, this is simply the medication of the rules that has the may. so all the rules that are being made in the width of increasing the restrictive, and we can say, oh, pressing, i think every russian diplomatic official say that they are being denied access to do or off who holds both french and russian passports. how can parents get away with doing that? well, that's

a good question. it's on the stage. uh them have to, uh, uh, groaned excess. uh but yes, i mean, i think the existing rules of the 90 i was meant as complicated by his do you will the citizenship, people i guess eventually he'll be entitled to a lawyer and he's free to choose which lawyer. he's also tied to a concert of protection telegram. the telegram ceo has previously cooperated with us sorties on banning access to russian channels, including archie and telegram in europe. how much of this arrest is politically motivated? well, it is a difficult, i think, to break the codes at 10 to grow. so the information on its channels is particularly well uh, texted uh that's all the is the major a source of frustration.

there's also an element of intimidation. i mean, the commission has already exceed days and gets to pre the pre investigation and investigation into a twitter. so i think as i say, it's part of a wind, the liberal drive to restrict for freedom of speech. the public use of reason and the cultural printed co, a public debate were for centuries at the source of strength quickly. well, the west was the basis for scientific progress. it was a framework, a regulatory, uh, uh, deals, re book that made it easier for the tools to be found and further west is not received. a is going back to its own tradition. west today stands

bravo. the opposite of what made it great is restricting democracy is restricted freedom of speech is regulated. take me into the internet not to remove possible materials such as excessive pornography. that's free, eat magic about it's restricting freedom. ready speech, it's no longer able to uh, guarantees of citizens, a decent standard of living. it is creating all these crimes and a power rest to divert attention away. nobody's economic se, uh and, and good are just how much of a president do you think this will set for other social platforms. facebook, for example, mark circle. burke has received a lot of criticism for not censoring more on the platform, or even eli muss guy who owns ex. i don't think you should necessarily mentioned

the say the same as the 2 of the same sentence. i think generally the commitment to freedom of speech has been somewhat different. but yes, as i said before, this is clearly designed to intimidate and it's evidently easy uh uh, to do something about a, if you will, nationality, should we say off russian 1000000000. yeah. then it has to move against either. so come on, eat or mask, but i think it's a very worried development. it's an action. this is suppose to intimidate the oh no, they cannot be the noise from the western point of view, a social media channel, but he's clearly also directed of this message here, clearly is you don't pay, will we ever ready to restrictions? freedom of speech. then we was hesitate uh to move even against

non compliance members of the west on the dock. all right, we're going to leave it there for now. member of the alternative for germany, party and lawyer. when our back is good, i think you better look, you have is stepping up. it's cracked down on followers of the ukranian orthodox church that was recently banned in the country. authorities have now sealed off a shrine, used by ethnic romanians in western ukraine. local church officials have slammed the move. are you creating this or it is ben? besides, to remain in speaking parish in ukraine and now romanian supp preventing death over this from building the sole cold, spiritual freedom, they tell all the locks and sealed the shrine of the club in the metropolitans in the cemetery of june of c. c t. we see how the key of authorities deliberately restricting the rights and disadvantage in the romanian, speaking minority in ukraine. first the story just refused to register as a carrier for the remaining of orthodox church. now the head start at the sewer,

romanian, speaking parishes. what next? the persian is, will most likely appeal to the romanian president. first of all, the ukrainian orthodox church on the canonical or from the orthodox church is that was the largest faith based organization in the country. well, it's not one of the largest, it's probably the most dominant one according to a $0.21, as i believe there are more than $20000000.00 ukranian orthodox such church show worshippers. and of course this stage began playing a very dangerous game of religious divisions. the since the 2019 a. that's the year of the creation of a schismatic. a orthodox church of ukraine instead of ukrainian orthodox church. now the latter, the 1st one was created and supported by the government and its suppose to the left to the a legit influence of most coal over ukrainian church goers and believers. now

what followed after that and before that as well actually could easily be described as the religious persecution in the country of ukraine. now since the establishment of the east gives matic, a church of government reigns on the ukrainian or cups. church became a regular, as well as against the clerics and regular church course. i mean, it became of violence as well as people were being kicked out of monasteries. and the church is now authorities of ukraine, of following the decision uh, on the new club creation of the new church. the even receives property from the traditional church and gave it to the new one that the government had established. now all this, of course, the coleman agents with the crating parliament passing a law on, on tuesday that would allow to ban ukraine and orthodox church, the canonical one altogether. and uh, now what we see from the latest news is that the persecution is not against only

against our russian speakers, but against other minorities in ukraine as well, in this case, against the remaining one. now this law, the latest law that would ban ukraine and orthodox church, was noticed by well, many people around the world, including the head of the catholic church, up old francis. and this is his reaction to key of law continual say we continue to follow with sorrow the fighting in ukraine and the russian federation. and thinking about the recently adopted norms of law and ukraine. i have a fear for the freedom of those who pray. please do not have bol ish. any christian church directly or indirectly churches shouldn't be touched. the patriarchal, the russian orthodox church curiel. now he's described a key of the late as bad as nothing less of a correct down on religion. and he is also called on the leaders of other religious

organizations around the world. and both frances, on the head of the anglican church and the k, another permanent religious leaders to voice their supports for the training orthodox church for the sake of this. and having failed to weaken the canonical church in ukraine, having failed to shake its unity. the storage has decided to band completely as a result of the adoption of the current law, hundreds of monasteries thousands of communities. millions of us and dogs, believers in ukraine will find themselves outside the legal field will lose their property in place of prayer. of course, not everyone in the written, in parliament's or within the ukrainian society has been supporting this new law that would potentially introduce a band and the ukranian orthodox church. now, one of the ukrainian parliament, the deputies actually had a criminal case launched against him when he, a voice is disconcerting about the ban of the ukrainian or from ex church. take a look when your courtroom was able to do that. ukrainian parliament has made

a fatal mistake by voting in favor of banning the ukrainian orthodox church. and this mistake without any doubts, will cause tragic consequences for the entire ukrainian people. no laws can prevent us from praying visiting temples, defending our faith. there are no obstacles to this, just as there were none for the lord. meanwhile, and millions of few gradients continued to associate themselves with the ukrainian orthodox church that could be found any moment now because there is a law people ready to pray in hiding to do their religious services in hiding. meanwhile, thousands of ukrainian or folks to the worshippers have come out for their traditional yearly gatherings in support of their things and their religion and their this is happening all over the country and in various circumstances as well. let's get back to our top story now. telegram ceo pub older off has been arrested

in france, where he reported late faces charges related to criminal activity on his social media platform. durham was detained at an airport near paris on saturday. and french officials have yet to publicly explain his case. russian diplomats say they are being denied access to do off of hold both russian and french passports. meanwhile, in moscow, locals had been protesting outside the french embassy scores of paper airplanes, symbolizing the telegram logo. i've been left imbedded in bushes surrounding the building. telegram is one of the most popular social media platforms in russia. well, let's discuss this further now with a can, can i? so former austria and foreign minister and head of the gorky center think tank got st. petersburg university care and good to have you on the program with us, the details of powerful drugs the rest remain unclear at the moment. i know french officials are expected to make a statement on monday, but what are your thoughts so far on this case? it's um, it's just another example that illustrates on a fortune that's

a what i called a that's a funeral. it's about the last. so for the floor and off all sorts of freedoms, i wouldn't say that it was to be expected. but we see in the, in the, in the way, do you have the that's the phone like 6 weeks of telling them that have been many, many statements against the, with the head example of the last 3 years. um, quite a bit of a rising it, this being a right wing, extremists, conspiracies, etc. so it's, it's, it's the same to a certain extent in terms of the, um, the thing telegram into the corner and the ends ends. and so what, what, what is happening now causes a new category? do you think there are of was not aware of the risk to him, of flying to friends. i'm just wondering why he would flight of friends from, from,

as or by john instead of going back to the by, were his businesses based? yeah. what i, i, i'm sure that you're already a requests for funding requests district. apparently, from what i've been reading, he wanted just to make it stop over for all one evening and embarrass but paris france is not a motive. various of the night since 1932000, when it was still the country of the son of lip, lip lip, which was this branch way of life and political sinking is gone. i myself was kicked off from france. it's amazing. you can expect from fonts in the very nice to wait and what i experienced in march 2022. it was there is no rule wrong. so you don't even get a width of the table that you're supposed to have a bank account that you are obliged to quit the french territory. and that your landlord is at wise to a certain extent, by the french secured to service,

to kick you off from your contract, runs the contract. i realized back them that that is something completely wrapped up in front. and it's a ration though it's, it's it, it told to contradiction was the basic rules. and what struck me most when i, when i saw what, what is possible is that they have time to have the attitude, the nurse to add to put a person like me, i have a scrutiny or pressed on. like probably do it off. why did you have a friends did a very high number of, of really, of dangerous terrorist. so who are ready to, to commit any sort of offices of crime. and it's a much of the civilized thing for european union as i was accused of. so that's something that's something wrong, that's something dysfunctional. and when you take also a person like uh, the french commission. uh, yeah. they picked all again,

the french commissioner. he's in charge of social media and he rode last to make a very nice and that's uh to uh, you know, mosque because mosque interviewed the residential candidate candidate. so the trunk saying like, don't do the game. does it take uh, uh, consequences we might band ex suite though, and it's not for the 1st time that such conduct announcements where was also against 10 a ground. so mister dorval's should have been much, much more careful issue to where that that, that it's not the anymore a country of freedom and low that through that he's visiting. yeah, i think it's particularly shocking because france does have that long history of liberty, a parent that these charges against the door of appear to be very serious. how far his parents willing to go to restrict the freedom of speech. and we think that he

really could be held personally responsible for everything that happens on telegram . yeah, this is, of course, i mean you don't have to be a lawyer. it's, it's, it's total nonsense. and the 1st reaction, i think that many people you and i might have friends, a cons be we have seen on facebook we have seen on is the crown, which are hanging ranking very high when it comes to a you try seeking in, in, in children, human trafficking and mr. sucker broke or i just been no uh, confronted with such kinds of charges. so of course it, it makes you wonder, but i think they wanted to put an example, and they want to say, well, be aware of who's next. and even boss already made today a statement in depth, sams he most but right. he called, but i think he's right, that freedom of speech is totally in decline and i'm just was wanting to, to, to subscribe to that. so the way the ras. well now um whether

the french courts we'd be able to push, it's true to such a case where it's what kind of vehicle team missed the last that can come up and out. you can slides through this case. it's not just the bigger case it's, it's highly political. and so they, i, i think that when the french courts would make the optimal to, to make sure that he, when he missed the dual off. uh, we're not when karen um drove whole to for different passports, but so far it's only russia that's come to his defense despite a previous rift between door of and the russian government. why do you think that is? why have we seen moscow come to us defense but not heard more widespread outcry from the west? yeah. what in the west uh there was no action uh at all it.