HomePegasus infected democracy: Top-level Catalan Leader breaks silence over snooping

Pegasus infected democracy: Top-level Catalan Leader breaks silence over snooping

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Last week The New Yorker published a comprehensive probe into the NSO Group and its now-infamous Pegasus spyware, which has a “monopoly” in Europe. While most claims of the software’s misuse are tied to autocratic or repressive governments, Ronan Farrow’s study focused on how Pegasus – which was meant to combat terrorism – was used by European powers for other purposes.

After a failed attempt to break away from Madrid in 2017, the Citizen Lab digital rights group at the University of Toronto discovered that more than 60 people related to the Catalan separatist movement in northeastern Spain had been pursued with Pegasus. Several members of the European Parliament, as well as Catalan politicians, lawyers, and campaigners, were among the targets.

Pere Aragones, the current leader of the Catalan regional government, and his two predecessors were among those targeted. This demonstrates how even the most democratic regimes can appear to exploit software for internal political purposes – in this case, against a democratically elected movement.

The Spanish government denies spying on Catalans unlawfully. However, according to Reuters, it has remained silent on whether it carried out any court-ordered electronic surveillance.

Last week’s reports, as well as all earlier ones, alleging any illegal targeting of Catalans, according to the NSO, were “false.”

In an interview, Aragones stated that he is “committed to a peaceful political solution to the conflict between Catalonia and Spain. We’re a democratic movement that is struggling for independence – but because we’re a pro-independence movement, they consider and treat us like a terrorist group.”

Citizen Lab, which released its results in tandem with The New Yorker’s article, stated that almost all of the infections occurred between 2017 and 2020, following Catalonia’s failed independence bid, which sent Spain into its worst political crisis in years.

Citizen Lab launched its probe in 2020 after specialists with Facebook’s WhatsApp alerted some Catalan politicians that their phones had been compromised. The newspapers El Pais and Guardian reported later that year that Catalan leaders had been targeted.

Citizen Lab claimed last week that while it couldn’t definitively link the espionage operations to a single entity, “strong circumstantial evidence suggests a nexus with Spanish authorities.”

“A democratic state does not spy on its citizens … a democratic state does not listen in on the private conversations of its political opponents,” Aragones told Haaretz after the report was released.

Aragones has been trying to get discussions with Madrid back on track since entering office. He did, however, say that the Pegasus infections, which his organization has long suspected, were a major issue.

“We need minimum confidence between both parties to advance in negotiations. It’s very difficult to be engaged in political negotiations if you think the other party is spying on you,” he added.

The unilateral referendum in 2017 resulted in a political conflict with the Spanish government. The region’s autonomy was suspended for over seven months, and nine Catalan leaders and activists were convicted to long prison sentences for their roles in the independence movement by Spain’s Supreme Court.

Aragones said Catalans want to have another “referendum on independence” as part of an arrangement with the Spanish government.

“For that purpose, we are starting a conversation with the Spanish government – but now you have this problem of confidence.”

He added that while no one knows for sure who is behind the snooping, “we suspect the Spanish intelligence agency. Who can be the other government that could be interested in my activities? This software can only be bought by states. The Spanish intelligence agency declared [in the past] that they bought this software. So yes, everybody is looking at Madrid,” he said.

“We don’t know if it was illegal surveillance or if it was authorized by the court,” Aragones continued. “If it was legal, that means they’re using a software that has been developed for counterterrorism to surveil legal political activity.”

The Catalan president claimed that being watched has harmed his movement’s capacity to function.

Unlike the Ukrainians, who have expressed interest in getting the NSO Group’s spyware, Aragones added that Catalonia “does not want Pegasus.” This type of software, they believe, “can only be used on criminals and terrorists”.

Nonetheless, the Catalan leader did not hold Israel responsible for the spyware’s sale to Madrid. He said that neither Jerusalem nor the NSO were to blame for the spyware’s use.

The spyware isn’t just a problem in Spain, he said. It’s a problem across Europe.

“Our leadership is all over Europe and the spyware crosses borders; it’s not only the case of the Catalonian political opposition, or this case in Poland or in Hungary where there has also been surveillance, or even 10 Downing Street” in London, where the British prime minister resides.

Image Credit: Getty

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