The District Court in Tel Aviv on Sunday chose to reject a petition, supported by Amnesty International, forcing Israel’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) to suspend exports by NSO Group, which the human rights watchdog accuses of enabling abuses by selling surveillance equipment to authoritarian states.
Last month, OCCRP reported that Moroccan authorities had allegedly used technology produced by the Israeli company to hack into investigative journalist Omar Radi’s phone.
“Today’s disgraceful ruling is a cruel blow to people put at risk around the world by NSO Group selling its products to notorious human rights abusers,” Danna Ingleton, acting co-director of Amnesty Tech, said in a statement.
She added that “at a moment when NSO and the Israeli MoD should be held accountable for their practices, it is appalling that the court has failed to do so.”
Radi, whose work has often focused on corruption and human rights abuses in Morocco, received a four month suspended sentence in March after posting a tweet in which he criticised the country’s judiciary.
Amid a widespread crackdown on peaceful dissent by the regime, judicial action against the journalist followed just months after two other human rights defenders in the North African country were targeted in similar attacks.
Maati Monjib and Abdessadak El Bouchattaoui also had their phones compromised by hackers who used software produced by NSO Group, according to analysis of their devices conducted by Amnesty’s Tech Lab.
