Rabat, Morocco – “I was surveilled not because of a specific article.
asserted
I → surveille → article
I was investigating land dispossession in Morocco.
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I → investigate → Morocco
I then learned I was a Pegasus target,” Omar Radi, a journalist and human rights defender, told Al Jazeera, referring to the mobile surveillance tool developed by Israeli company NSO Group.
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Radi → learn → Group
The findings emerged in June 2020, when Amnesty International Security Lab examined his phone.
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Lab → emerge → phone
Radi, now based in Germany, said he had spent two years, from 2018 to 2020, noticing signs including his phone’s battery draining quickly, its temperature rising and the network slowing down.
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network → base → signs
The physical surveillance, he said, was barely discreet.
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he → say → ?
“They came every day to get a daily report from the parking attendants in my street, the shops I used to go to, and my friends,” he said.
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he → come → street
“I would sometimes turn around and walk towards the people following me to take photographs, but they ran quickly and hid their faces.”
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they → turn → faces
His case is among four detailed in a new Amnesty International report, We Start With the Verdict: Inside Morocco’s Surveillance Machine, produced with 14 media organisations and coordinated by the international network of journalists Forbidden Stories.
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We → detail → journalists
The other three are Fouad Abdelmoumni, a veteran activist; Abdessadak El Bouchattaoui, a human rights lawyer; and Hicham Mansouri, a journalist in exile who had been imprisoned in 2015 on charges of adultery and sexual exploitation, which Amnesty describes as trumped-up.
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Amnesty → imprison → trumped
The report draws on interviews with a whistleblower using the pseudonym Safir, a former employee of Morocco’s General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DGST).
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report → draw → Surveillance
Amnesty said it corroborated key parts of Safir’s testimony with independent sources, technical evidence and interviews with 10 people identified as surveillance targets, including Radi.
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it → say → Radi
“The Amnesty report connected many dots as to what I was living and feeling while I was under tight surveillance,” Radi said.
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Radi → connect → surveillance
“It explains the extraordinary aspect of my police interrogations and my trial, where many of my rights weren’t respected, because even the judicial police and the judges were under monitoring,” he added.
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he → explain → monitoring
Amnesty identifies the DGST as the agency behind the deployment of Pegasus spyware in Morocco and documents what it describes as abuses of the spyware against activists and journalists between 2017 and 2021.
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it → identify → 2017
Morocco denies surveillance
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Morocco → deny → surveillance
Morocco has previously rejected Amnesty’s allegations that its authorities used Pegasus to target journalists, activists and other critics.
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authorities → reject → journalists
In statements issued in 2020 and 2022, Moroccan authorities challenged Amnesty to provide material evidence supporting its claims.
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authorities → issue → claims
Amnesty said it wrote to Moroccan authorities four weeks before publishing its latest report and invited them to respond, but received no response.
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it → say → response
Al Jazeera also sought comment from Moroccan officials but had not received a response at the time of publication.
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Jazeera → seek → publication
Moroccan media have also challenged the latest report.
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media → challenge → report
Le360 cited arguments that the presence of a phone number in Pegasus targeting records does not, by itself, prove that a device was infected or establish who ordered an alleged attack.
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who → cite → attack
The outlet also argued that Amnesty had not provided the conclusive technical and material evidence Moroccan authorities had demanded.
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authorities → argue → evidence
The report says Morocco’s Pegasus operations were fully active by October 2017, pointing to the case of human rights lawyer El Bouchattaoui, whose number was entered into the system in September 2017 and selected for targeting weeks before he received an infection link by text message.
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he → say → message
Amnesty said its analysis of Pegasus records matched 103 Moroccan phone numbers to individuals identified as potential targets between September and December 2017.
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analysis → say → September
Of those, 65 were identifiable as civil society members, including 34 human rights defenders, 22 journalists and media workers, five lawyers and four academics.
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65 → include → defenders
According to Amnesty, Safir described a surveillance apparatus that combined digital and physical methods.
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that → accord → methods
Targeted individuals were secretly filmed and recorded in detention, offices, cars, cafes and even bedrooms, he said.
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he → target → detention
Phone shops, he added, were coopted to sell targets devices infected with spyware.
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he → add → spyware
Neighbours of human rights defenders, he said, were recruited as informants to file daily reports on their movements.
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he → say → movements
Safir also described the use of remote control systems (RCS) at internet cafes.
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Safir → describe → cafes
Field agents would identify which cafe a target was visiting, he said, giving the DGST access to activity on machines it had already infected and allowing an operator to track calls, read messages, access photographs and record audio.
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operator → identify → audio
The report says similar tactics were used against activist Abdelmoumni, who was secretly filmed at home with his fiancee in 2021.
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who → say → 2021
Abdelmoumni said he believed the footage was captured through a hidden camera in an air-conditioning unit, based on the recording’s angle.
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footage → say → angle
Safir described the episode as a “textbook case” of a DGST surveillance and cleanup operation designed to leave no trace.
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Safir → describe → trace
Journalists describe pressure and intimidation
Taoufik Bouachrine, one of Morocco’s best-known journalists and host of the Talk on Politics podcast, was not named in Amnesty’s report but described a similar pattern.
“In Morocco, as in all Arab countries, inventive methods are used to silence journalists and deter them from investigative journalism, particularly when it concerns the unlawful exercise of power, financial corruption, and the intertwining of political authority and money,” he told Al Jazeera.
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he → describe → Jazeera
The first method, he said, is fabricating criminal cases against journalists, “often involving allegations of sexual misconduct in a conservative society that amount to a journalist’s moral execution”.
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that → say → execution
The second, he said, is a smear campaign run through armies of online trolls and operatives who target journalists and their families.
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who → say → journalists
Bouachrine, 57, was arrested in 2018 on charges of rape and human trafficking and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
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Bouachrine → arrest → prison
He has denied the charges, saying his prosecution was tied to his journalism.
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prosecution → deny → journalism
…and 6 more, not listed.
The Aporia
