Israeli Spyware A Threat To Democracy & Human Rights Around The World

Riyaz Patel

A simple call on WhatsApp is enough to install spyware on your phone and have access to all your conversations and data. Fiction? No, reality! 

The software, called Pegasus, is manufactured by the Israeli company NSO Group and sold to governments to “prevent criminal and terrorist acts,” so the company says.

However, this software has been used to target at least a hundred human rights defenders around the world, WhatsApp revealed last week. 

Manon Schick, director of Amnesty International (AI) Switzerland says its research has found that this spyware has been used by governments to attack civil society activists, including at least 24 human rights defenders, journalists and parliamentarians in Mexico, as well as Ahmed Mansoor, the recipient of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders who was sentenced to ten years in prison in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

AI adds that it’s likely that this software, Pegasus,