the program again of espionage Pegasus has entered the center of international controversy after knowing the espionage to the President of Spain, Peter Sanchez.
(Read: Espionage hits the relationship between the Spanish Government and Catalan independentists)
It was after a press conference by the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, who reported the case to the Spanish government in which Defense Minister Margarita Robles was also affected.
(You are interested in: What is Pegasus, a program accused of spying on various politicians in the world?)
The events, which follow the denunciations of the Catalan independence movement of having been spied on using the same software, have world governments on the lookout, who already discussed the use of this cybernetic tool at the time.
The program developed by the Israeli company NSO was pointed out in the past by different governments, NGOs, the media and journalists, who have accused the use of it for the interpretation of communications. But what other world leaders and personalities have been spied on by Pegasus?
presidents
Prior to the events denounced by the Spanish government and Catalan politicians, several cases of espionage had already been presented in Europe through Pegasus, the most striking being that of Emmanuel Macron.
In 2021, after revelations from the media consortium Forbidden Storyyes, Emmanuel Macron proceeded to change his number after having detected the infection of your phone with the software for more than two years.
According to what was reported then, a Moroccan intelligence agency would have intercepted the telephone of the European president, as well as a long list of journalists and activists.
Likewise, another of those affected by the Software was Andrés Manuel López Obrador, president of Mexico, who at the same time denounced that he, his family and some close officials had been spied on through ‘Pegasus’.
According to the Aristegui Noticias portal, Amlo’s phones were allegedly tapped between 2016 and 2017. However, the president pointed out that the espionage work was aimed at organized crime and not government opponents.
royals
On the other hand, going to the Middle East, the case of the princess Haya Bint Al-Hussain, who was the wife of 72-year-old Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, and a victim of espionage by Pegasus.
According to BBC News, Al-Hussain fled from the United Arab Emirates for security reasons to the United Kingdom and sued Mohammed for these acts, after allegedly kidnapping two of his daughters.
Likewise, the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, and his entourage have also appeared on the list of targets of Pegasus, which according to several international media is an agency that works independently.
Although several governments have demanded that the NSO list the buyers of the software, the company has always refused, as it has also done to deliver a complete list of the list of people intercepted around the world.
Journalists
The press has been another of those affected by the use of the software, as international organizations such as Amnesty International or Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have reported, nearly 200 journalists have been intercepted using the Pegasus program.
In lists made public by media such as the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, members of these media outlets have been spied on, as well as hundreds of other communicators, often adverse to the governments in power.
Such is the case of Jamal Khashoggi, who was allegedly intercepted six months before his murder in Turkish territory, but in addition, two women from his close circle would also have been victims of the act, before and after the disappearance of the journalist in 2018.
In Mexico, after López Obrador’s complaint, it was also learned that the journalist’s telephone number Cecilio Pineda, murdered in March 2017, had also been spied on. Among other media that appear as possible spies are: AFP, CNN, Al Jazeera, France 24, Radio Free Europe, Mediapart, El País, Associated Press, Le Monde, Bloomberg, The Economist, Reuters and Voice of America.
Citizenship of the common
Although it was thought that the program only attacked high public spheres in the world, in 2019 WhatsApp denounced that Pegasus took advantage of a breach in its security and intercepted communications from thousands of users, which is why it sued the company in 2019.
Likewise, BBC News reported that there have been more than 600 politicians, 189 journalists, 69 executives and 85 activists spied on by Pegasus. Of these, in Mexico it was reported that by 2021 relatives of 43 students who disappeared in 2014 in Ayotzinapa and human rights defenders were also targeted by the espionage program.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE, BBC News
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