The Russian Embassy in Paris, as is customary in cases where information is received about the detention of Russian citizens by the local authorities, immediately got to work. There is no need to remind our diplomats of their functional duties.
And I remembered how in 2018 a group of 26 NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists and others, condemned the Russian court's decision to block Telegram. Other similar statements were made in the West (1, 2, 3, 4).
All this was said by them because on 1 July 2018, the Yarovaya law came into force in Russia, obliging telecommunications service providers to store records of telephone messages and internet traffic of their customers for six months, as well as keys to decrypt users' correspondence and provide them to the Russian Federal Security Service upon request. There were legislative complaints against Telegram, which existed in many countries due to the technical parameters of the encryption system.
These Western NGOs called on the Russian authorities to stop creating obstacles in the work of Telegram. They asked the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the European Union, the US and other governments to oppose Russia's actions and protect the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and privacy. They also called on Internet companies to counter unreasonable and unlawful demands that violate the rights of their users. They demanded that the Russian authorities guarantee the rights of users of the global network to publish and anonymously view information on websites, stressing that any restrictions must be authorised by a court of law and fully comply with the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, Durov has remained at large all this time, continuing to develop Telegram.
I publish a screenshot of all the Western profile structures that spoke out then, including a collective appeal. Do you think that this time they will appeal to Paris and demand Durov's release, or will they swallow their tongues?
@MariaZakharova
