by Margaret Kimberley, published on Black Agenda Report, August 28, 2024
What does democracy mean if elections are ignored and journalists are charged as criminals? That is the case today, as western countries descend into crises of their own making and are more blatant in their disregard for the norms they claim to adhere to. They are only devoted to aggression and to silencing dissent.
The nations of the collective west love to brag and to praise themselves as being democracies. They say they abhor authoritarian, autocratic governments and constantly condemn anyone they don’t like as belonging to that club. In reality, the word democracy is used to fool the gullible into accepting actions and policies they ought to reject and also as a weapon meant to disguise evil intent. But the facade is cracking as the dictatorial tendency becomes harder to hide.
Here in the United States, Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee after wealthy donors orchestrated a coup against the sitting president they put into office four years earlier. The end run around the primary voting system meant that no one voted for her to become president and yet we are warned that we are at risk of losing democracy unless she wins the election.
The US is not alone regarding democratic fakery. In France, President Emmanuel Macron’s party lost an election to the New Popular Front (NFP) coalition . Under French law, he is bound to appoint a prime minister from that coalition but he has refused to do so, claiming that the coalition won only a plurality and not a majority. Macron is very brazenly violating the letter and the spirit of French law and making a mockery of any claims of having a political system that is in any way superior to others.
Now that same country which has ignored the will of its electorate has arrested a man whose crime is giving people all over the world unfettered access to information and for refusing to give governments a “back door” to his platform. Pavel Durov is the CEO of Telegram. Durov is Russian born and he first founded VKontakte, a platform very similar to Facebook. He was at odds with the Russian government over his commitment to encrypting communication and he left Russia to live in the United Arab Emirates. He was also granted French citizenship in 2021 as an “eminent foreigner ” that is to say, “a French-speaking foreigner who contributes through their eminent action to the influence of France and the prosperity of its international economic relations“.
Neither billionaire wealth nor French citizenship helped Durov after he was arrested on August 24th in Paris after disembarking from his private jet. The charges against him allege that he allows criminal activity on Telegram, but that claim defies logic. Every social media platform is accessible to people who want to break the law but Telegram is unique, the platform of choice for people all over the world who want to share unfiltered information. Both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers report from the front using Telegram. Israeli soldiers boast of their war crimes on Telegram and Palestinians use it not to celebrate but to alert the world with images of broken bodies and blown-up buildings in Gaza. Ironically, it isn’t “authoritarian” Russia that arrested Durov, but France, which is supposedly among the “free” nations of the world.
Durov is not alone in being persecuted nor is France alone in diminishing legal rights. In the United States, former Marine intelligence officer and United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter’s passport was confiscated on June 4 as he was about to board a plane in New York City. Ritter was en route to Russia where he planned to speak at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. He was given no explanation for the passport confiscation but two months later his home was searched by the FBI, and Ritter was informed that he was under investigation for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) . According to a New York Times report on Ritter and others, “The Department of Justice has begun a broad criminal investigation into Americans who have worked with Russia’s state television networks, signaling an aggressive effort to combat the Kremlin’s influence operations leading up to the presidential election in November…” In addition to his former roles in the U.S. military and at the United Nations, Ritter is also a journalist who hosts his own podcast and Substack page while also writing for Consortium News and other outlets.
The FBI raid on Ritter’s home was quickly followed by the arrest of British journalist Richard Medhurst on August 15 as he returned to the UK at Heathrow Airport. He was held for nearly 24 hours under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act and was accused of, “expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization.” It isn’t clear what if anything Medhurst said or wrote in violation of this stature, but other UK citizens have been arrested for making statements that supported Palestinians’ rights to self-defense.
It is not coincidental that the west has dropped any pretense of democracy in its attacks on journalists and those who provide media access. Julian Assange was recently released in a plea agreement after years in asylum and in prison. The Assange solidarity movement was by and large not taken up by those people who are also allegedly journalists. They joined in attacking him and gave access to Assange’s persecutors to make their case while treating the victim as a pariah unworthy of any consideration.
The years of draconian legislation such as the Terrorism Act in the UK, the Patriot Act, the Espionage Act and the Foreign Agent Registration Act in the US have all been used to shut down any narrative that states find inconvenient. It is ironic that Durov was lionized during the days of his disputes with the Russian government but he has now been rendered invisible by the west’s black hole used to eliminate dissenting information.
One must ask the question, why now? The world has reached a point of very dangerous contradictions. Russia is winning the war in Ukraine but the west insists on prolonging the conflict with an ill-fated incursion into Russia, complete with war propaganda proclaiming victory while Ukrainian soldiers are the casualties. Not only do Israel’s war crimes continue, but it is seeking to instigate a wider regional war against Iran in particular. US incompetence during a lame-duck presidency only increases tensions while corporate media say little or nothing about the many crises facing the world. Even with their smaller audiences Ritter and Medhurst are a threat. Durov will be held a de facto hostage until he agrees to allow surveillance of Telegram users.
Of course, the west is only revealing its true nature. The nations that invaded most of the world and enslaved and colonized and stole resources were never superior. They were just the most powerful and their riches came from exploiting the rest of humanity. When we speak of the plight of Durov and Medhurst and Ritter we must also acknowledge that they fell prey to the worst predators in human history.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents . You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter , Bluesky , and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret dot kimberley at blackagendareport dot com.