Comité Cerezo raises concerns about Pegasus hacking software used against human rights defenders in Mexico

Published by Brent Patterson on July 23, 2021

PBI-Mexico and PBI-Canada with Antonio Cerezo, September 2019.

On July 21, the Comité Cerezo México posted on their website: “At the time, four years ago, in 2017, we reported that we were sure that we had been targets of telephone spying, of the NSO Pegasus program. Almost nobody believed us, we went out in the media barely and they did not even accept our mobile devices to do the expert report, as if only some had the right to be spied on and also complain.”

The Guardian explains: “Pegasus is a malware that infects iPhones and Android devices to enable operators of the tool to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones.” It adds that the hacking software was sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group to Mexico “where multiple different government agencies are known to have bought Pegasus.”

The Guardian has also revealed that the spyware was used against a lawyer with the “Tlachinollan” Human Rights Centre and family members of the missing Ayotzinapa students by the Mexican intelligence agency CISEN and the Army.

Comité Cerezo adds: “If we talk about arbitrary detentions and torture, within the universe of 4152 arbitrary detentions carried out, in the last two six-year terms, against human rights defenders, it would be interesting to know how many of those who were infected with the Pegasus software, ended up in prison.”

They conclude: “The participants in this state machinery of illegal surveillance, which was the method to execute and disappear, must be brought to justice.”

The full article by the Comité Cerezo can be read at Pegasus, state terrorism.

PBI-Mexico began accompanying Comité Cerezo in 2002.