We are very concerned about the French state's arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram. Telegram is one of the few outlets where public channels for Palestinian & regional resistance are widely available.

This French warrant comes just one day after the European Union ordered one of the most popular English-language channels with news from the Resistance, Resistance News Network (@PalestineResist) banned across the EU. Backup now available for EU readers at @RNN_Backup.

Palestinian & regional resistance organizations -- and news outlets that report on them, like RNN, @TheCradlemedia and others, as well as journalists who cover the Resistance like Richard Medhurst -- are subjected to wide-ranging social media censorship and government repression.

Even we in Samidoun have been subjected to this censorship on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook — not to mention the ban on Samidoun in Germany and the 10-year ban on entering Switzerland for our European coordinator Mohammed Khatib — a small portion of the repression experienced by the resistance organizations on the front lines defending humanity against genocide in Gaza, throughout Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Iran and beyond.

The US/EU/Canada/British/NATO "terrorist" designations of Resistance organizations (and even state-level militaries, in the case of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps!) have no value internationally & are in fact violations of their responsibilities against genocide & apartheid — as well as illegal violations of the fundamental rights to national sovereignty and self-determination, as well as the absolute prohibitions on colonialism and genocide, as are the unilateral coercive measures perpetrated by the Western imperialist powers against nations pursuing an independent path of development.

Amid the ongoing Zionist genocide in Gaza, Telegram is one of the few outlets that people can turn to for reliable, uncensored access to the direct statements, reports, videos and photos of the Resistance -- and more broadly, of the Palestinian people.

France and the EU's ongoing direct complicity and participation in Zionist/US genocide in Gaza are part of their own imperialist & colonial war against Palestine, the Arab nation and the people of the region more broadly.

We are very concerned that France is detaining Mr Durov in order to induce Telegram to silence & kick off Palestinian & regional resistance and news channels in order to suppress global popular resistance to the ongoing Zionist-imperialist genocide in Gaza, and/or to provide surveillance information or a "backdoor" to Western intelligence agencies.

Of course, here we note and express our full solidarity with the hundreds of people facing charges and investigations (and even jail time!) throughout France for so-called "glorification of terror" for upholding the legitimate Palestinian armed struggle and further urge the IMMEDIATE release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Lebanese Arab Communist struggler for Palestine imprisoned by France for 40 years and denied his return to Lebanon despite being eligible for release for 25 years, in full alliance with the US & the Zionist entity.