Subject: Surveillance of political opponents in Spain
An investigative report by The Guardian! and El País? has revealed that the President of the Catalan Parliament, Roger Torrent, former MP Anna Gabriel and another Catalan pro-independence activist, Jordi Domingo, were targeted in 2019 using the Pegasus spyware. This spyware, which is only sold to governments, is developed by the Israeli company NSO and exploited a previous WhatsApp vulnerability in order to gain access to emails, text messages, photographs, the phone’s recorder and
the camera.
Taking into consideration that any surveillance or other kinds of interception of communications are prohibited by the ePrivacy Directive and that Pegasus spyware is only used by governments, will the Commission start an investigation on this matter in order to clarify whether a Member State might be responsible of this specific case?
Taking into consideration that a top official such as the President of the Catalan Parliament has been a victim of a government-led espionage, what actions will the Commission take in order to prevent any kind of persecution of political opponents in Spain?
