Luis Hernández Navarro

Surveillance

Luis Hernández Navarro was selected for surveillance with the Pegasus spyware in August 2016. Forbidden Stories could not confirm the infection since he did not keep the phone he used back then.

Who is he?

Luis Hernández Navarro is the director of the Op-Ed section of Mexican newspaper La Jornada. He also hosts a TV show called “Cruce de Palabras” (Crosswords) on the Telesur channel.

In 2016, Hernández was hosting the TV show “A contra corriente” (Against the current) on Rompetiempo TV while writing articles for La Jornada. He was particularly interested in then President Enrique Peña Nieto’s school reform and the protests against it.

He wrote extensively about the Nochixtlan massacre: on June 19, 2018, in Oaxaca, eight people died and 108 were injured when the police tried to break a protest, led by teachers and parents, against the school reform. In the months that followed, Navarro collected testimonies of children from the community. “They used their guns and started killing people”, one of them recalled. The tragedy, presented by the authorities as a confrontation, was interpreted as a warning sign by the opponents to the reform.

Hernández also received opponents to the reform on his TV show and published the names of businessmen who were in favor of the reform, underlining the money they would make out of it.

His work

Response

Mexican authorities did not answer Forbidden Stories’ questions on the surveillance of journalists. NSO Group did not answer Forbidden Stories’ questions on specific targets but said it “will continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action based on the results of these investigations.”