Morocco Silences Critics With Infected Phones and Spyware

Moroccan intelligence agencies have turned their attention toward journalists, activists, and rights defenders using high-tech surveillance tools designed to silence them. Amnesty International released a new report on Thursday that exposes how the country's domestic security service, known as the DGST, relies on spyware, hidden microphones, and phones pre-infected with malware to conduct unlawful monitoring.

The investigation reveals an expansive apparatus built by Moroccan authorities specifically meant to crush critical voices within society. This machine operates through a combination of advanced digital weapons and old-fashioned tactics like tailing suspects and wiretapping lines. One whistleblower provided testimony that sheds light on these methods, describing how people are secretly videoed inside detention centers, their private offices, even while driving cars or sitting in their own bedrooms.

Phones sold at local shops reportedly arrive already infected with malicious software planted by DGST agents. The agency has also been found guilty of compromising devices physically at airports and infecting internet cafes with remote-controlled spyware. In one disturbing instance, investigators discovered microphones concealed inside light fixtures within the apartment of journalist Omar Radi before he faced imprisonment.

The data gathered from these intrusions does not sit idle. Instead, it fuels public smear campaigns aimed at discrediting activists and human rights defenders. A former employee of the DGST helped uncover these details alongside leaked documents that form the backbone of this report titled Inside Morocco's surveillance machine. For years, groups like Amnesty have accused Rabat of using Pegasus spyware from the Israeli NSO Group to track its citizens, though officials in Morocco have consistently denied such actions.

Amnesty noted they sent a letter to Moroccan authorities four weeks before publishing their findings but received no reply at all. Al Jazeera could not reach any officials for comment immediately after the story broke. The security lab team matched 103 phone numbers entered into the Pegasus system between September and December of last year against specific individuals. Of those tracked, sixty-five belonged to civil society members, including thirty-four human rights defenders and twenty-two journalists working in media.

Another twenty-five targets were political figures or government officials, while five included diplomats representing international organizations. Donncha O Cearbhaill, who leads Amnesty's Security Lab, stated that prominent defenders had among the first numbers entered into this invasive system. The report also found evidence of spyware delivered over the state-owned Maroc Telecom network. Morocco appears to have bought these dangerous tools from companies based in Israel, the European Union, and the United States.

Agnes Callamard, Secretary-General for Amnesty International, declared that Morocco has fully embraced techno-authoritarian practices without hesitation. She called on the nation to stop this surveillance immediately and urged other states to halt exports of spyware until proper human rights safeguards exist in place. The entire investigation was part of a larger collaboration involving fourteen media organizations coordinated by Forbidden Stories.