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BRUSSELS, Belgium — The consortium of journalists behind the Pegasus Venture investigation into malware from Israel-based NSO Group that offered additional proof that it was used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents, gained the highest European Union journalism prize Thursday.
The European Parliament stated in a press release that the “unprecedented leak of greater than 50,000 cellphone numbers chosen for surveillance by the purchasers of the Israeli firm NSO Group reveals how this expertise has been systematically abused for years.”
The listing was obtained by the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Tales and the human rights group Amnesty Worldwide and shared with 16 information organizations.
Journalists had been in a position to establish greater than 1,000 people in 50 international locations who had been allegedly chosen by NSO shoppers for potential surveillance.
They embrace 189 journalists, greater than 600 politicians and authorities officers, a minimum of 65 enterprise executives, 85 human rights activists and a number of other heads of state, in response to The Washington Put up, a consortium member. The journalists work for organizations together with The Related Press, Reuters, CNN, The Wall Road Journal, Le Monde and The Monetary Occasions.
NSO has been accused of promoting the adware to the governments of Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, India, and the United Arab Emirates, which used it to hack into the telephones of dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists.
A department of the Israeli NSO Group firm, close to the southern Israeli city of Sapir, on August 24, 2021. (AP Photograph/Sebastian Scheiner, File)
NSO has insisted that its software program was supposed to be used solely in preventing terrorism and different crimes, and the reported concentrating on listing was not associated to the corporate.
Final month, International Minister Yair Lapid performed down criticism of Israel’s regulation of NSO Group, however vowed to step up efforts to make sure the corporate’s controversial adware doesn’t fall into the fallacious palms.
The EU’s inaugural prize of 20,000 euros (round $23,000) is called after Daphne Caruana Galizia and is a tribute to the Maltese investigative journalist who was killed in a automotive bomb assault 4 years in the past.
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