MADRID (Reuters) – Catalonia’s regional leader accused the Spanish government on Monday of spying on its citizens after a rights group said his phone and dozens more belonging to Catalan pro-independence figures had been infected with spyware used by sovereign states.
The Citizen Lab digital rights group found more than 60 people linked to the Catalan separatist movement, including several members of the European Parliament, other politicians, lawyers and activists, had been targeted with “Pegasus” spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group.
“It’s an unjustifiable disgrace,” Catalan leader Pere Aragones tweeted. “An extremely serious attack on fundamental rights and democracy.”
Describing the use of surveillance software as crossing a “red line”, he demanded explanations from the Spanish government.
The government declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
Almost all of the infections took place between 2017 and 2020, Citizen Lab said, in the wake of a failed independence bid by Catalonia that plunged Spain into its worst political crisis in years.
Toronto-based Citizen Lab said it could not conclusively attribute the spying operations to a specific entity but said: “Strong circumstantial evidence suggests a nexus with Spanish authorities.”
Citizen Lab began its investigation in 2020 after researchers working with Facebook’s instant message service WhatsApp warned several Catalan lawmakers, including parliament speaker Roger Torrent, that their phones had been broken into.
At that time, Interior Minister Fernando Marlaska denied the Spanish government or its intelligence services had any involvement.
Newspaper El Pais subsequently reported that Spain’s CNI intelligence agency did have access to the software.
The European Union’s data protection watchdog has called for a ban on Pegasus over allegations it has been abused by client governments to spy on rights activists, journalists and politicians.
Last week Reuters reported that several senior EU officials had been targeted by the software, which allows users to access photos, videos and other private information stored on a targeted device.
NSO, which markets the software as a law-enforcement tool, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Nathan Allen, Emma Pinedo and Joan Faus; Editing by Nick Macfie)
