India's Government is making a habit of spying on its Journalists

topic:	Human Rights
located:	India
editor:	Hanan Zaffar

The Indian Government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has dealt another blow to press freedom in the country. According to a recent joint investigation by Amnesty International and The Washington Post, high-profile journalists critical of the government have been targeted using Pegasus, a highly invasive Spyware software.

The report mentions journalists Siddharth Varadarajan of The Wire and Anand Mangnale of The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) as some of the latest targets of the spyware on their iPhones. The OCCRP published an investigation in August into the financial dealings of Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, a key business ally of Prime Minister Modi.

"Increasingly, journalists in India face the threat of unlawful surveillance simply for doing their jobs," Donncha O Cearbhaill, head of Amnesty International's Security Lab, said in the report. That threat compounds an already hostile climate for reporters also facing "imprisonment under draconian laws, smear campaigns, harassment, and intimidation", he added.

Developed by an Israeli firm NSO Group, Pegasus, only sold to governments or security agencies, is known for its ability to infiltrate mobile phones and gather extensive data, including calls, text messages, emails, and even activate the microphone and camera without the user's knowledge.

The forensic investigation conducted by Amnesty International's Security Lab found that Varadarajan was targeted with Pegasus in October 2023 by the same attacker-controlled email address used against Mangnale, confirming that the same Pegasus client targeted both journalists. The investigation could not conclude whether the spyware had successfully compromised the two targeted devices.

It is not the first time the Modi government has been accused of using pegasus to spy on journalists and its critics. In 2019, WhatsApp reportedly informed the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology that around 121 users in India may have been targeted by Pegasus spyware. Two years later, a consortium of 16 news organisations published the Pegasus Project, which found that among other targets worldwide, over 300 Indians, including journalists, activists, politicians, bureaucrats, and business people, had been targeted by the same Pegasus spyware.

That same year, the country's Supreme Court set up a technical committee to probe the revelations of the Pegasus Project. Though the government denied conducting "illegal surveillance", it also refused to cooperate with the Court's probe, the findings of which have never been made public.

"Despite repeated revelations," Ó Cearbhaill said, "there has been a shameful lack of accountability about the use of Pegasus spyware in India, which only intensifies the sense of impunity over these human rights violations."

In October 2023, Apple sparked a political controversy in the country by issuing spyware threat alerts to over 20 Opposition leaders and journalists, including Vardarajan. The notifications cautioned them about potential targeting by "state-sponsored attackers."

Activists note that freedom of the press in the world's largest democracy has dwindled under Modi's leadership. India dropped 21 places to 161 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders, since he assumed office in 2014. Journalists critical of the government also claim that they face judicial harassment and rampant online abuse campaigns.

Image by Niek Verlaan.

Call to Action

Free Press for all everywhere