Pegasus: Morocco pinned for using spyware, especially against journalists

(illustraton) Demonstrators demand the release of journalists Omar Radi and Soulaimane Raissouni in Rabat on May 25, 2021. AP - Mosa'ab Elshamy

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5 mins

It is one of the biggest spy scandals of the decade, revealed by fifteen international media.

At least 50,000 people monitored by a dozen states using Israeli software.

Pegasus allows you to take control of a phone, gives access to the entire content of the device as well as its microphone and camera.

Among the user countries, Morocco. 

Publicity

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According to the

international investigation

, the Moroccan security service even systematically uses Pegasus against journalists and power critics.

In 2020 Amnesty International had already revealed the infection of the phone of investigative journalist

Omar Radi

Two days later an investigation was opened against him.

His trial for "rape" and "espionage" is currently taking place in Casablanca.

► 

See also

: Radi case in Morocco: difficult times for the press and restriction of freedoms 

The editor-in-chief of the newspaper

Akhbar al Youm, 

Taoufik Bouachrine is serving a fifteen-year prison sentence for rape.

Her number is on Pegasus' list along with at least five complainants.

Some of them had also retracted, claiming to have been forced to produce false testimony.

To read also

: In Morocco, 100th day of hunger strike for journalist Soulaïmane Raissouni 

The Moroccan authorities have also spied on foreign journalists, including around thirty French. 

For example, the founder of

Mediapart

Edwy Plenel was targeted shortly after publicly criticizing the police repression of demonstrations in Morocco.

The journalist of the same media, Lenaïg Bredoux, who worked on Morocco was also a victim of this espionage.

Our hypothesis is that we are in fact a Trojan horse to actually attack Moroccan journalists ...

Lénaïg Bredoux, journalist at Médiapart

Sylvie Koffi

Another target Bruno Delport, director of TSF Jazz radio but also chairman of the board of directors of Solidarité Sida, an NGO that works with prostitutes in Morocco.

"

A fragile regime ... which doubts itself

 " 

Freelance journalist Omar Brouksy has been watched by Pegasus. Joined by Gaëlle Laleix, from the Africa service, he declares to have been

 "

a little shaken

 " when reading the list of people monitored by the software. “ 

Before me, there are friends, like Omar Radi and other activists, like Fouad Abdelmoumni, who is an economist… I am reading the survey and am impressed by the number of personalities who have been the target of this software in Morocco and outside Morocco! It's quite mind-blowing!

I do not understand why all this mess, all these means used to spy on people, when Morocco is a poor country, it is a cautious regime, which is not based on solid institutions, which is wary of everything and everything. everyone… So for me it's a fragile diet. A regime that relies on solid institutions could not resort to such practices, so it is a regime that doubts itself

 ”.

The private company that markets Pegasus is structurally linked to the Israel Defense Ministry.

Mediapart also points out that the vast majority of client countries have intensified their relations with Israel in recent years.

But it is still unclear whether the Israeli secret services are taking advantage of this technology and whether they have access to information obtained by other countries?

Investigators in any case promise new revelations in the coming days

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  • Computer science

  • Morocco

  • Freedom of press

  • Media

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