Durov is facing a 20-year jail term, the French press claims, revealing that a warrant for Durov's arrest had been issued as part of an investigation into allegations of organized crime, child pornography, promotion of terrorism, fraud, and drug trafficking.
"The French justice system has deliberately twisted the spirit of the law to formulate excessive charges against Durov. It is clear that this is a pretext," Jacques Sapir told Sputnik.
The charges brought by the French government against Pavel Durov stem from his refusal to censor the Telegram network, according to the scholar. Sapir argues that it's unfair to accuse the Telegram founder of complicity in terrorism, child pornography, and so forth, especially when one knows what is circulating on other social networks.
"His case is similar to all the measures that are currently being taken in Western countries that are infringing on freedom of expression," he noted.
The French scholar suggests that the main difference between Durov and Mark Zuckerberg, whose Instagram* "has a massive child exploitation problem", is that the US tech mogul censors free speech and apparently provided Western governments with backdoor access, as Elon Musk implies.
Zuckergerg "already caved into censorship pressure," the X owner tweeted on August 25:
"Instagram has a massive child exploitation problem, but no arrest for Zuck, as he censors free speech and gives governments backdoor access to user data," Musk wrote.
In his April interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, Durov noted that US cybersecurity officials previously sought to create a backdoor in his app, something that he vehemently opposes.
"This is one more step, after the long prosecutions against Julian Assange and those against Snowden, in a long list of attacks on freedom of expression in Western countries," Sapir said.
According to the pundit, what should be classified as administrative offenses are being unjustly redefined as serious crimes under questionable pretenses. He stated that, as a result, social networks are now facing criminalization.
The French scholar believes that this trend will provide "even more importance" to social networks that do not originate from the Western world and that could uphold freedom of expression.
*banned for extremism in Russia