By Pooja Chaudhuri

India Today has claimed that Amnesty International, one of the coordinators of the Pegasus Project, has backtracked on its initial reportage into the Israeli spyware used to target journalists, activists and politicians.

“Amnesty backtracks on snooping list,” wrote India Today while tweeting a broadcast where news tickers flashing on the screen read, “Snoopgate list was never real?”, “Big Amnesty U-turn” and “Amnesty pulls back of ‘list’ claims”.

( Link https://twitter.com/IndiaToday/status/1418148206941114369?s=19)

The channel was referring to the list of 50,000 potential surveillance targets that Paris-based Forbidden Stories first accessed. India Today suggested that Amnesty had reported that all numbers on the leaked list were snooped on but the non-for-profit has ‘now’ clarified that the list was of the persons of interest selected by clients of the NSO Group that owns Pegasus.

“Is Pegasus spygate call database fake?” asked Times Now during a show anchored by Rahul Shivshankar. He claimed that a new ‘twist’ has been reported in the Pegasus Project and that Amnesty never linked the data to NSO.

( Link https://youtu.be/zbRigo576GU)

The BJP, which is at the heart of the controversy in India as the NSO Group has said that it sells the advanced software to only “vetted governments”, attempted to completely discredit the Pegasus Project. “Amnesty International has denied this list,” the party claimed.

( Link https://twitter.com/BJP4India/status/1418153324956635137?s=19)

Has Amnesty backtracked on its initial reportage?
No.

Amnesty International’s Security Lab in partnership with Forbidden Stories accessed a leaked list of 50,000 numbers that were potential surveillance targets of NSO clients. In its first report on July 18, Amnesty clearly stated, “NSO Group’s spyware has been used to facilitate human rights violations around the world on a massive scale, according to a major investigation into the leak of 50,000 phone numbers of potential surveillance targets.”

Forbidden Stories also never said that 50,000 phones were infected with Pegasus. The outlet wrote these were the numbers NSO clients “selected for surveillance”.

Read the full story here:-https://www.altnews.in/amnesty-has-not-backtracked-on-the-pegasus-list-media-bjp-make-false-claims/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=newpost