صراط عشق صراط عشق
The phone of Mohammed Al-Tajer, a Lawyer once involved in human rights in Bahrain , was hacked by a government client of NSO Group. The 55-year-old lawyer from Bahrain had been known among dissidents for his “fearless” defence of opposition leaders and protesters after the 2011 pro-democracy uprising in the tiny Persian Gulf state, when a series of demonstrations and protests were violently suppressed by authorities with the help of Saudi forces. Tajer had not been involved in human rights issues for five years, however – the last time he’d been rounded up and threatened with arrest by Bahraini authorities.
But a forensic examination of Tajer’s phone by researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto has found that the lawyer’s phone was hacked on multiple occasions in September 2021 by a government client of NSO Group, the Israeli spyware maker. “I used to be head of Bahrain Human Rights Observatory, used to have human rights activities inside Bahrain or with the UN. But now I don’t have any ongoing human rights activities,” Tajer, who is still in Bahrain, told Red Line for Gulf (RL4G), a non-profit collection of journalists and activists who are focused on digital security and freedom of expression in Persian Gulf states and worked with Citizen Lab on the recent investigation.
“The worst and most harmful thing is you feel you are not secure. That instead of your phone being your friend, it is now your enemy. You don’t know what information is private, and what is already exposed to the state, this is painful.” A separate investigation by the Pegasus Project – a media consortium investigating NSO Group which includes the Guardian and is coordinated by the French non-profit Forbidden Stories – has also identified 20 Bahraini officials who are close to the government and may have been targeted for surveillance. Their phone numbers were identified with the help of Ali Abdulemam of RL4G.
The mobile numbers – including those of loyalists close to Bahrain’s ruling family – appeared on a leaked database that the Pegasus Project believes contains the phone numbers of individuals who were selected as possible surveillance targets by clients of NSO. The mobile phone of a US state department official who was stationed in Bahrain at the time of her selection also appears on the leaked database. A state department spokesperson said the US condemns the harassment and arbitrary or unlawful surveillance of journalists, human rights activists, or other perceived regime critics.
“While we do not discuss security protocols, procedures, or capabilities, we can say that we are deeply concerned about the counterintelligence and security risks these types of commercial spyware pose to US government personnel,” the spokesperson said. Al-Tajer has had a long career in defending opposition figures and human rights activists in Bahrain. He was arrested and tortured during a 2011 crackdown on Bahrain’s opposition, and he has been repeatedly attacked by pro-government journalists due to his participation in human rights events, as well as his political activities, which include advocating for a UK style constitutional monarchy in Bahrain.
Our analysis of Al Tajer’s iPhone 11 Pro Max showed that the phone had been hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware at least three times in September 2021, starting on September 2, 2021 and ending on September 27, 2021. Al Tajer’s phone was hacked while running iOS 14, and the phone does not appear to have been hacked after he updated it to iOS 15.0.2 in October 2021. Evidence of the hack on Mohammed Al-Tajer’s phone included records showing that three processes were run on the phone in September 2021 that we link to NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware with high confidenc.
