On Thursday, Esquerra, together with EH-Bildu and BNG, entered a petition for an inquiry into State espionage with Pegasus spyware, one of Esquerra’s conditions to endorse the current board of the Spanish Congress.

The Esquerra Group at the Spanish Congress, together with Basque EH-Bildu and Galician BNG parties, on Thursday morning entered a petition for a committee of inquiry into the so-called Pegasus case, for which there is evidence that at least 65 Catalan and Basque political leaders, as well as social activists, lawyers and journalists were illegally spied on through their mobile phones using Pegasus and Candiru spyware. The establishment of the inquiry was one of Esquerra’s conditions to endorse the the current board of the Spanish Congress.

Among the victims of the espionage are the current and former presidents of the Catalan Generalitat government Pere Aragonès, Quim Torra and Artur Mas, and former speakers of Parliament Roger Torrent and Laura Borràs.

The deputy spokesperson of the Esquerra Group in Congress Teresa Jordà pointed out that the intention of the inquiry is to ascertain “in detail” what the involvement of state institutions was in the illegal snooping, as well as “the involvement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the delegations of the state” and the identification of those responsible for the entire espionage network.

A Citizen Lab report revealed in April 2022 that the terminals of the targets of the espionage had been infected with the most sophisticated spyware, allowing not only the monitoring of the phones but also access to all their contents, from extracting messaging data to screenshots, snooping on calls and remote microphone and camera activation, among others.

Pegasus spyware is marketed by Israeli NSO and is sold only to states for use by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

The three congressional groups recall that despite the public condemnation of the espionage and the purpose of the inquiry into the so-called Operation Catalonia established at the time—impaired by the dissolution of the Spanish Parliament last May—as of today, “no answer has yet been given regarding the assumption and clearing of responsibilities,” nor of the control methods to prevent these illegal practices, “which place the entire democratic system in jeopardy,” from happening again.

In this regard, Teresa Jordà pointed out that another of the inquiry's objectives is to determine “for how long” this espionage went on, beyond the specific periods and actions that ended up being discovered as a result of the tracing of the infected mobile phones.

The Esquerra, EH-Bildu and BNG groups demand to get to the bottom and unmask what is considered a political espionage operation by the State. That is why they call for “all the documentation and means to clarify the facts” to be made available to the commission and to comply with the State’s obligation to protect the fundamental rights of all citizens.

In this regard, they recall that given the seriousness of the events, the European Parliament established its own commission of inquiry, which included several hearings in Madrid last May.

According to the proponents, it must be possible to ascertain in detail the involvement of the State institutions in this large-scale espionage operation, the measures that have been taken to prevent it, and the details of the spyware purchase contracts, among others. In addition, it should also investigate all actions promoted by the State to pursue political dissent and propose measures of reparation for those affected.