Pegasus case: Franco-Palestinian Salah Hamouri files a complaint against NSO
French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri embraces his father Hassan after being released from an Israeli prison on September 30, 2018 AFP
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Franco-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri, currently detained by Israel, filed a complaint in France on Tuesday April 6 against the Israeli cybersecurity company NSO for having "
illegally infiltrated
" his mobile phone with the spyware Pegasus.
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The complaint, filed on Tuesday at the Paris prosecutor's office by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the League for Human Rights (LDH), follows revelations about Israeli spyware and its house NSO mother.
According to the plaintiffs, Salah Hamouri's phone was spied on by Pegasus while he was in France, between April 27, 2021 and May 13, 2021.
In November 2021,
Salah Hamouri
's name appears alongside five other Palestinian human rights defenders, as their phones are spied on by the notorious Pegasus spyware.
According to the
Front Line Defenders
association , in collaboration with Amnesty International and Citizen Lab, the lawyer's phone has been hacked since April 2021.
A surveillance that begins in the occupied Palestinian territories, but which continues when Salah Hamouri is in France, which constitutes, under French law, a violation of the right to respect for private life, reports our correspondent in Ramallah,
Alice Froussard
►
To read also:
"Pegasus" scandal: "This software is used to monitor the population at large"
Salah Hamouri in the sights of the Israeli authorities
For more than twenty years, the 36-year-old Franco-Palestinian lawyer, human rights defender and currently in administrative detention in Israel, has been the victim of persecution and is waging a battle with various Israeli institutions.
►
To read also:
Israel: new conviction for Franco-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri
He spent more than 10 years in Israeli prisons, suffered several travel bans, had to pay bail and exorbitant fines before being placed under house arrest.
His permanent residence in Jerusalem was also revoked.
The Jewish state accuses him of being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an organization considered "
terrorist
" by the Jewish state, which he denies.
In a press release, the FIDH specifies that these attacks against Salah Hamouri are part of "
a broader campaign led by the Israeli government to delegitimize Palestinian groups and defenders working for the defense of human rights by associating them with terrorists, and putting pressure on the people who give them a platform and actively acting to block their sources of funding
”.
Human rights organizations are hoping for the opening of a judicial investigation, because, according to his lawyer, this cyber-espionage is "
political, given the harassment to which Salah Hamouri has been subjected for years and given the attacks made to human rights defenders in Israel
".
This complaint joins
dozens of others filed
for its illegal use of technology in violation of human rights and principles, including two filed by digital giants Meta - formerly Facebook - and Apple.
►
To read also:
Pegasus: the spyware used against six Palestinians, officials and activists
(and with agencies)
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Pegasus
France
Israel
Israelo-Palestinian conflict
Palestinian territories