As many as 50,000 phone numbers from around the world have been selected for surveillance.
Azerbaijan, along with ten other countries, is suspected of monitoring journalists and activists, using sophisticated software that gave the government access to their phones.
According to a new investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the authorities in these countries used Pegasus program produced by Israel’s NSO Group company to spy on hundreds of journalists and activists.
The spyware can record phone calls and read text messages, access photographs and passwords, track GPS data, and secretly make audio and video recordings.
A list of 73 people, whose phone numbers have already been identified, has been published in Azerbaijan’s social media.
The list includes Azerbaijan’s famous investigative journalist Khadija Ismayil, activist Mehman Huseynov, journalists of Radio Liberty, opposition Meydan TV, Azadlig newspaper, as well as, surprisingly, a few pro-government media representatives.
The has not any official reaction to the spyware allegations.
Other countries who have reportedly used the spyware are Bahrain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Togo, and the United Arab Emirates.
The leaked list of 50,000 wired phone numbers from all over the world since 2016 include those of journalists from the world’s major media organizations such as Agence France-Presse, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, France 24, Mediapart, El Pais, the Associated Press, Le Monde, Bloomberg, The Economist, Reuters, and Voice of America, according to The Guardian newspaper.
