ALQST has written to the European Parliament’s Pegasus Inquiry Committee (PEGA) alerting them to the case of ALQST founder Yahya Assiri, who has been the target of Pegasus cyberattacks by the Saudi authorities, and calling on PEGA and the European Commission to take concrete steps to help victims of such attacks. 

Yahya Assiri, a prominent Saudi human rights activist, founder of ALQST for Human Rights and Diwan London and a founding member of the National Assembly Party (NAAS), suffered a number of cyberattacks in the United Kingdom between 2018 and 2020. Assiri’s devices were infected with Pegasus, a highly invasive spyware developed by Israeli technology firm NSO Group and used by the Saudi Arabian authorities to secretly gather and extract data, violating Assiri's privacy and endangering the people with whom he had been communicating. Assiri has since brought a legal claim in the UK against NSO Group and Saudi Arabia. 

In light of this ALQST is calling on PEGA, which was set up by the European Parliament in March 2022 to investigate wide-scale abuse of Pegasus and similar surveillance spyware, to take several key measures in support of its mandate, including organising a hearing with activists who have been targeted by Pegasus and setting up a litigation fund for victims of such attacks. Furthermore, ALQST calls on PEGA to press the European Commission to impose a moratorium on the trade and use of spyware and establish a blacklist of technology companies that sell digital tools used for repression.

ALQST’s Executive Director Julia Legner comments: “The PEGA committee has an incredibly important mandate and has already carried out some laudable work, including questioning representatives from NSO Group. It should now take practical steps to help the many victims of these troubling attacks by actively listening to their experiences and supporting their quest for justice."