The Moroccan journalist Omar Radi used by Amnesty International in its war against the Israeli software company NSO.

Berlin, Germany., July 11, 2020 — Since 2019, Amnesty International is championing an action to force the Israeli Ministry of Defense to limit the activities of an Israeli technology company because of its software developed to help government agencies detect and prevent terrorism and crime. Amnesty International accuses governments using this software to target journalists around the world. These allegations are unfounded and lack proof and therefore not credible.

In a detailed article about this issue published on atlasinfo.fr, Amnesty International’s war against NSO Group dates back to August 24, 2016 through Citizen Lab, which revealed in a 13-page report, the Israeli Software bought by many governments would have been used to “spy” on their dissidents. Morocco was never on the list of these countries. Amnesty International has been tracking down NSO Group for five years. Why is Amnesty International “using” the Moroccan journalist Omar Radi to feed the list of accusations brought by the organization against the Israeli company? According to AtlasInfo.fr, their team tried to get a response from Amnesty International but without success.

The Moroccan journalist Omar Radi was allegedly subject to surveillance, using software developed by the Israeli company NSO Group. This Moroccan journalist intern who is not, by any measures, a human rights’ activist enjoys the status of “victim of the system” which he seems to cultivate. In short, Amnesty International and Omar Radi serve each other’s purposes. The irony is that according to Amnesty International, the Moroccan security services had been in possession of the Pegasus software since 2018 which is not true for many reasons. First, Amnesty International published two reports in 9 months on the same subject. In October 2019, the report said that the telephone of Maati Mounjib was the subject of “malicious software executed from early 2018” until early 2019. What is troubling is that Amnesty International advances that “between 2017 and 2018, Mounjib received SMS messages containing malicious links associated with the NSO Group”. Troubling because if Morocco had only used this technology in 2018, as the organization maintains, who then was spying on Maati Mounjib in 2017? In this October 2019 report, Amnesty International again uses the conditional tense to say that “Maati Mounjib’s phone appears to have been maliciously redirected while browsing the Internet with the Safari browser”.

A press release maintains that the Moroccan authorities have never been contacted by Amnesty International, contrary to what the organization claims. In fact, in a statement released Friday, June 26, the Moroccan authorities denied the allegations in the report by AI. In fact, Rabat reported that the government received the executive director of Amnesty International in Morocco, Mohamed Sektaoui, to express its shock at the allegations contained in the report.

Why is Amnesty International “using” the Moroccan journalist Omar Radi to feed the list of accusations brought by the organization against the Israeli company? What is the real agenda of Amnesty International? Isn’t the job of a human rights organization finding and verifying facts before accusing anyone of abuse of human rights? Finally, why is Amnesty international not transparent on who its funders are?

About Friends of Morocco:
Friends of Morocco (FOM), active since 1988, is an organisation of Americans and Europeans, mostly returned volunteers, with experience in Morocco with an interest in promoting political, educational, cultural, charitable, social, literary and scientific exchanges between Morocco and the rest of the world. FOM is a non profit organisation with the headquarter is in the USA and chapters around the world. The main objective of Friends of Morocco is to promote Morocco and to build bridges and connect people who have fallen in Love with this country, adopted its culture and made it their 2nd home. Friends of Morocco is a nonprofit organization with branches around the world.

Contact:
Elle P. Wolfgang
Friends of Morocco
Berlin, Germany
015213454385
tcprelease@gmail.com
http://www.freundevonmarokko.de