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Justin Sun has decided to make some noise about Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, who’s in hot water with the French authorities. Justin hit Twitter with a proposal to start a FreePavel DAO.

He’s also offering up $1 million of his own money to get things moving, but only if the community backs the idea and it’s done in a decentralized way. Justin tagged Elon Musk and Mario Nawfal to get them involved.

Telegram, meanwhile, has finally said something about Pavel’s situation. They put out a statement on their News channel, backing their CEO and calling for a quick resolution. 

Pavel’s status is still pretty unclear, though. French authorities aren’t playing ball with the Russian embassy, and everyone’s just waiting for the official word from Paris, which should come tomorrow.

Pavel Durov

Pavel was detained on August 24 at an airport outside Paris. Early reports said he was arrested on charges related to how Telegram handles content moderation, but there’s still no clear confirmation if he’s actually been arrested or charged with anything.

Pavel’s detention has already caused some chaos in the market. The price of TON dropped by more than 12%, but on the flip side, support for Pavel within the crypto and Telegram communities seems to be growing. 

Social media is buzzing with #FreePavel messages and theories about why the French government decided to go after him in the first place.

Meanwhile, in the official statement, Telegram insisted that they follow EU laws, including the Digital Services Act, and that their moderation is up to industry standards. 

Telegram also stated that Pavel has nothing to hide and often travels in Europe. They called the idea that either the platform or Pavel could be responsible for any abuse of the platform “absurd.”