Espionage of journalists is here to stay and it is up to the press to learn to protect themselves, was the conclusion of the web talk “Latin American journalism under espionage”, convened by the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation, the Salvadoran newspaper El Faro and the Latin American Center for Journalistic Investigation (CLIP).
The conversation was moderated by the Colombian journalist María Teresa Ronderos, director of CLIP, in the analysis of the findings of the investigation of El Faro and the digital magazine Gato Encerrado that denounces the obsessive espionage of members of these media, the danger that the practice for the free and independent journalistic exercise and the ways to confront it, the Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui and the Salvadorans Óscar Martínez, and Ezequiel Barrera participated.
The talk revolved around the espionage registered in Mexico and El Salvador against journalists in particular, although not only against them but against citizens in general, with the famous Pegasus software.
The journalists narrated in detail the espionage they were subjected to with Pegasus by the Mexican and Salvadoran governments during 2015 and between 2020 and 2021, respectively.
In Mexico, said Aristegui, today it is known that Pegasus was bought first by the government of Felipe Calderón and then by that of Enrique Peña Nieto and that what is important today is that the Pegasus case was prosecuted for the first time as a result of complaints filed by her and other reporters during the Peñanietista government and recently activated by the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
The matter is being processed with her as a victim, she explained, under the fact that she was allegedly spied on for being a journalist.
“That gives the Mexican court case a very important color,” he said.
Ronderos recommended journalists around the world to use Imazing security software to protect their mobile phones from espionage.
rolando.ramos@eleconomista.mx
