Amnesty International: Pegasus is UAE’s choice to violate human rights

LONDON, Jul. 25 (YPA) – Amnesty International has said that the Israeli “Pegasus” espionage program was the preferred option for human rights violators of countries, led by the UAE.

The organization stated that the new evidence revealed by the Pegasus project showed that the phone numbers of the two Emirati princesses, Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum and Haya bint Al Hussein, were included in the list of potential targets for the clients of the spyware company “NSO” among 50,000 numbers leaked within Realization of the Pegasus project.

Rasha Abdelrahim, Director of Technology at Amnesty International, said: “These shocking discoveries seem to implicate NSO Group in the list of human rights violations that Princess Latifa and Princess Haya have been subjected to.”

Abdelrahim added that it is possible that NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware helped strip Princess Latifa of her freedom – possibly giving her captors the tools they needed to hack and track her phone.” It may also have been used to target Princess Haya and many of her close associates, after she spoke out in support of Princess Latifa.”

“This proves once again that the Pegasus spyware is the preferred choice of human rights violators,” she said.

Amnesty International stressed that the compelling facts revealed by the Pegasus project confirm the urgent need to put in place strict regulatory rules to control the uncontrolled surveillance sector.

The organization called on countries to impose a temporary global ban on the export, sale, transfer and use of monitoring devices, pending the establishment of a solid framework for regulation and control that adheres to human rights standards.

It also called on the Israeli “NSO” group to immediately stop selling its devices to countries that are accustomed to subjecting human rights defenders and journalists to illegal surveillance.

YPA