By RFIPubliée on 16-08-2019Modified on 16-08-2019 at 00:52
Huawei again in turmoil, but this time in Africa. The Wall Street Journal published Wednesday (August 14th) a survey of links between African governments and local employees of the Chinese firm. In the viewfinder of the American newspaper, Uganda and Zambia. Authorities in both countries have asked for help to obtain private information from other politicians. The goal is to keep the current regimes in place and eliminate the opposition.
These Huawei employees hacked the phones of their targets with Pegasus, an Israeli spyware. This allows you to access messages, activate the microphone or switch on the camera of the infected mobile.
In Uganda, the case dates back to 2018. Authorities in Kampala used technicians to hack into Bhats Wine's WhatsApp and Skype accounts. The singer, who became a member of parliament in June 2017, is a virulent critic of President Yoweri Museveni. The objective was then to counter this rising figure of the opposition.
Without further details, the government confirmed that it has links with Huawei. He explains that his technicians work with the police and intelligence services for national security purposes.
In Zambia, employees of the Chinese firm helped trace critical bloggers of President Edgar Lungu . They hacked phones and Facebook pages in order to geotag them and allow them to be arrested.
Here too, the authorities responded to the Wall Street Journal. They admit to working in collaboration with Huawei, but not for espionage purposes, only to spot " Fake News " writers .
In its investigation, the American newspaper states that all these acts took place locally. There is no evidence that the company's executives in China were aware of the facts.
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