The revelations on the entities and personalities spied on continue while Morocco has not yet rendered accounts. The latest is the Saharawi activist, Aminatou Haïder, Amnesty International (AI) revealed yesterday.
The Sahrawi human rights activist, Aminatou Haïdar, was spied on by Morocco via the Pegasus software of the Israeli company NSO Group, said yesterday Amnesty International (AI), which denounced these violations and pleaded for the establishment of a “moratorium” on the sale of spyware.
Morocco has targeted anyone (politician, journalist, human rights activist and of course Sahrawi activists) whom it considers to represent a danger to its policy.
This is the case of Aminatou Haïder whose activism poisons the kingdom. “The Sahrawi activist, Aminatou Haïdar, was the target of the Pegasus spyware,” AI said in a statement.
“The analysis carried out by the NGO’s Security Lab concluded that two phones belonging to Aminatou Haïdar, were targeted and infected very recently, in November 2021, only a few months after the revelations of Project Pegasus which shocked the whole world. ”, writes the human rights NGO.
Indeed, after receiving email security alerts from Apple warning her that her phones might be targeted by “state-sponsored attackers”, Aminatou Haïdar contacted the Right Livelihood Foundation, which referred her to Amnesty International’s Security Lab for technical analysis, says AI.
In July 2021, an investigation published by a consortium of 17 international media had concluded that 12 countries including Morocco, clients of NSO Group, had used spyware.
Despite these revelations, “NSO Group has taken no steps to prevent human rights violations caused by its tools in Morocco”, recalls Amnesty International, adding that “the Zionist society must be held accountable for its role in the fact that ‘Aminatou Haïdar has been targeted by her software, as have other courageous activists in Morocco and Western Sahara’.
For the NGO, “there is no doubt that civil society in Morocco and Western Sahara continues to be illegally targeted by the Pegasus spyware”.
“Attacks that are part of a tougher repression against peaceful dissent in Morocco,” she still accuses. And to point the finger at the “inability of the Moroccan authorities to respect and protect the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly”.
Faced with these violations, Amnesty International pleads for “a moratorium” on the sale of spyware. “Spyware companies like NSO Group cannot be trusted to self-regulate.
Also, we demand that a moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of spyware be established without delay, until a regulatory framework for the protection of human rights is put in place”, declared Danna Ingleton, Deputy Director of Amnesty Tech.
Known for her peaceful militancy in favor of the Sahrawi cause, Aminatou Haïdar received the Robert-F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2008, the Civil Courage Award in 2009 and the Right Livelihood Award in 2019.
