Rosa Moussaoui

Surveillance

Rosa Moussaoui was selected for surveillance with the Pegasus spyware in the summer of 2019. Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International were unable to confirm a successful infection of her phone since she had formatted it prior to the analysis.

Who is she?

Rosa Moussaoui is a French journalist working for the left-wing newspaper L’Humanité. She has worked for the daily for over 17 years on a wide variety of subjects. She has written many articles about Morocco, particularly on how the country fares in terms of human rights.

She has written extensively about Moroccan journalists and human rights defenders imprisoned under the reign of Mohammed VI, including Maati Monjib and Omar Radi, both victims of spyware.

“Whenever I report in Morocco, I am subject to a narrow, physical and visible surveillance, but it’s not the same because I see them,” Moussaoui told Forbidden Stories. “For me, this is worse, the invisibility of the attack scares me. It’s violent and it’s humilitating, it’s very dangerous for democracy. That means that tomorrow we’ll be so spied on that we won’t be able to investigate any subject matter.”

Her work

Response

Moroccan authorities said there was no proof of them being a client of NSO Group. 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.”