Arabic version: العفو الدولية تفصّل مزاعم المراقبة في المغرب
According to Allafrica, Amnesty International says Moroccan authorities operate a broad surveillance apparatus using digital and analogue tools to monitor journalists, human rights defenders and other critical voices. The organization’s report, We start with the verdict: Inside Morocco’s surveillance machine, alleges that surveillance is used alongside criminal prosecutions, judicial harassment and other repression that violates rights to privacy, liberty, expression, association and peaceful assembly.
Amnesty said its findings draw on whistleblower testimony, leaked surveillance data, spyware-targeting records, material from surveillance-tool vendors, digital forensics and interviews with ten surveillance targets. Morocco has repeatedly denied using spyware against its citizens, according to the report. Amnesty said it corroborated key parts of testimony from a former Direction Générale de la Surveillance du Territoire employee using the pseudonym Safir with independent sources, technical evidence and interviews.
The report identifies the DGST as the body responsible for deploying Pegasus spyware in Morocco and alleges abuses against activists and journalists between 2017 and 2021. Amnesty said targets were infected through physical access to devices, one-click and zero-click attacks, and network-injection attacks delivered through the state-owned Maroc Telecom network. It also alleged that agents arranged for phone shops to sell devices pre-infected with spyware and used physical recording equipment in private spaces.
Safir told Amnesty that surveillance included intercepted calls, location tracking, recordings in detention facilities, offices, cars, cafes and homes, and the recruitment of neighbours as informants. The report names NSO Group, Hacking Team—now known as Memento Labs—and Gamma Group and FinFisher among companies connected to surveillance technologies purchased by Morocco. Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard called on Moroccan authorities to end unlawful surveillance of human rights defenders and journalists.
