Amnesty International rebuts claim by BJP, says it ‘stands by’ Pegasus reports

Amnesty International Rebuts Claim by BJP, says it ‘Stands by’ Pegasus Reports

The BJP on Thursday denounced the global Pegasus Project media investigation as “fake news” and “yellow journalism”, and claimed that Amnesty International had said that the list of phone numbers suspected to be under surveillance was not directly related to the Israeli company NSO Group.

The global human rights organisation, however, issued a statement debunking the “false rumours” and “inaccurate media stories”, and stressing that it “categorically stands by” the findings of the investigation.

At a press conference at the BJP headquarters on Thursday afternoon, Minister of State for External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi claimed that Amnesty had “denied that the list which is floating around is not the actual list”.

Around the same time, Amnesty said: “Amnesty International categorically stands by the findings of the Pegasus Project, and that the data is irrefutably linked to potential targets of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The false rumours being pushed on social media are intended to distract from the widespread unlawful targeting of journalists, activists and others that the Pegasus Project has revealed.

The list of possible targets of surveillance by government clients of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware was obtained by Amnesty International along with the French journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories, and shared with 17 media partners around the world, including The Guardian in the United Kingdom, The Washington Post in the United States, Le Monde in France, and The Wire in India.

For the last five days, these media organisations have been publishing reports based on the leaked list as part of their ‘Pegasus Project’ investigation.

(Source : Indian Express)