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Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, has been charged in France for allowing several criminal activities on the messaging app. The billionaire failed to curb spread of sexual images of children, drug trafficking and other illegal activities on Telegram, the court ruled.
In a statement, the Paris prosecutors said that Durov has been charged with refusing to share documents demanded by authorities as well as “dissemination of images of minors in child pornography” as well as drug trafficking, fraud and money laundering.
The charges against the 39-year-old paint a picture of a platform almost entirely uncooperative with authorities and include allegations he refused to help agencies run legal wiretaps on suspects. He has also been accused of enabling gangs and organised criminal networks to carry out illegal transactions on the app.
Russian-born Durov, who was arrested on Saturday, has been granted bail on the condition that he must not leave France and report to a police station twice a week. He has also been ordered to pay $ 5.6 million in bail.
In a statement released on Telegram on Sunday, the Dubai-based company asserted that Durov has “nothing to hide” and that the app abides by European laws.
“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform,” the statement declared. “We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation.”
The case has fuelled debate on where freedom of speech ends and enforcement of the law begins. It also underlines the uneasy relationship between governments and Telegram, which has close to 1 billion users, while serving as a warning shot to tech titans who refuse to comply with authorities over alleged illegality on their platforms.
Separately, Durov is also being investigated on suspicion of “serious acts of violence” towards one of his children while he and an ex-partner, the boy’s mother, were in Paris, a source said. She also filed another complaint against Durov in Switzerland last year.
Amid a ‘#MeToo’ storm in the Malayalam film industry, actor-turned-politician Khushbu Sundar on Wednesday said the Kerala government-appointed Justice K Hema Committee was “much needed” to break the abuse faced by female professionals in cinema. Taking to her official X account, she said the “MeToo” moment prevailing in “our industry breaks you” and urged women not to compromise.
The Justice Hema Committee was constituted after the 2017 actress assault case and its report was made public last week. The 235-page report notes instances of harassment and exploitation of women in the Malayalam cinema industry.
“Kudos to the women who have stood their ground and emerged victorious,” Ms Sundar wrote in a long post on X.
“Abuse, asking for sexual favors, and expecting women to compromise to gain a foothold or accelerate their careers exist in every field. Why is a woman alone expected to go through the grind? Although men too face it, it’s marginally women who bear the brunt,” she added.
The fear of being shamed, victim blaming, and questions like “Why did you do it?” or “What made you do it?” break her, she said.
The victim might be a stranger to you or me, but she needs our “support, an ear to listen, and emotional backing” from us all, Ms Sundar, a BJP leader, said.
“When questioning why she didn’t come out earlier, we need to consider her circumstances – not everyone is privileged to speak out,” she added.
Khushbu Sundar said some people ask her what took her so long to speak about her father’s abuse.
“I agree I should have spoken earlier. But what happened to me, was not a compromise to build my career. I was abused at the hands of the person who was supposed to provide me the strongest arms to hold me if I fell,” she wrote
💔 This moment of #MeToo prevailing in our industry breaks you. Kudos to the women who have stood their ground and emerged victorious. ✊ The #HemaCommittee was much needed to break the abuse. But will it?
Abuse, asking for sexual favors, and expecting women to compromise to…
— KhushbuSundar (@khushsundar) August 28, 2024
Ms Sundar, who has been a member of the National Commission for Women (NCW), said last year that she was sexually abused by her father at the age of 8.
When she was 15 years old, she started revolting against her father who then left the family in the lurch, the actor-politician said at a town hall last year.
Khushbu Sundar also spoke to NDTV on Wednesday and said women have to stand up, come out and speak up. Asked whether she faced any such instances, she said that there was a very stray incident when she had just entered South Indian cinema.
“There was a producer who approached me because I was here (the industry) alone and I didn’t have a Godfather. So probably this producer must have thought that I would succumb to the pressure,” she said.
“He gave me kind of a hint when he walked into my makeup room when I was shooting for a Telugu film. I removed my slippers and told him I wear 41 (the size). Do you want to take a whack right here or do you want me to hit you in front of the unit? And that put him in place,” she told NDTV, adding that women have to stand up for themselves at the “very moment”.
She also said that not only women, but men should also come out and support them.
“Because we women work in an atmosphere thinking probably men around us would be there to support us and protect us. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen at times,” she said.