The Palestinian Digital Rights Coalition (PDRC) welcomes filing of a lawsuit against the Israeli Surveillance tech NSO Group for infiltrating the phone of Palestinian-French lawyer and human rights defender Salah Hammouri* and calls on the immediate moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, among other demands.
We support the effort of The International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), The Human Rights League (LDH) and Salah Hammouri in filing a complaint in France targeting NSO Group, for illegally infiltrating the phone of Salah Hammouri, a violation that was initiated in Palestine and continued on French soil, which constitute violation of the right to privacy under French law and international human rights conventions.
Frontline Defenders revealed in November 2021 after an investigation in coordination with Citizen Lab and Amnesty International that the phones of Mr. Hammouri and other Palestinian human rights defenders were hacked by technology of the NSO Group, an Israeli technology firm known for its Pegasus spyware. The investigation confirmed that Mr. Hammouri’s phone has been infiltrated since April 2021. NSO Group has been using this spyware illegally to hack and infiltrate not only Mr. Hammouri’s phone but rather his entire professional and private life, depriving him from his right to privacy among others.