The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) participated in many sessions during the Internet Governance Forum 2023 which was held in Kyoto, the cultural capital of Japan, between 08-12 October 2023.

In addition, on 11 October 2023, GCHR Executive Director Khalid Ibrahim moderated a session entitled, “Surveillance Technology in MENA: Different Levels of Accountability”. The  three speakers were Marwa Fatafta, MENA Policy and Advocacy Manager at Access Now and the Coordinator of the MENA Coalition to Combat Surveillance (MCCS), Asia Abdulkareem, researcher at the Iraqi Network for Social Media (INSM), and Samuel Jones, the President of the Heartland Initiative.

After introducing the three speakers, Ibrahim talked about the MENA Coalition to Combat Surveillance (MCCS), co-led by GCHR and Access Now, which was launched at RightsCon in June 2021. He said that the ultimate goal of the MCCS is: “to end the sale of digital surveillance tools to repressive governments in the region, fight for a safe and open internet, defend human rights, and protect human rights defenders, journalists, and internet users from governments’ prying eyes.”

He talked about the case of his colleague, prominent human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor, who he said “was the first victim of Pegasus spyware back in 2015 which is the same year in which he got the Martin Ennals Award for human rights.” He noted that, “Ahmed was arrested on 20 March 2017, tortured and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He is still in solitary confinement since his arrest. He, his family, friends and we his colleagues have paid a heavy price for the use of surveillance technology against him. We are all still in pain.”

In relation to the level of accountability, Khalid said, “There is not any local mechanism to address massive human rights violations in MENA and as such, by using the concept of international jurisdiction, GCHR filed a complaint in France on 28 July 2021 against the Israeli software company NSO Group, which is responsible for harm caused to human rights defenders in the MENA region and beyond.” It is worth noting that there are several other active cases filed against this Group.

Marwa Fatafta then talked about the MCCS, which she said “came out of the urgent need to combat the proliferating use of commercial spyware and the digital surveillance tools in the MENA region. We have in different countries in the MENA region been investigating and exposing the depth and the spreads of how spyware, and different surveillance tools produced by NSO, among others, are used systematically to target, monitor, and surveil human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, civil society from Bahrain to Morocco, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Egypt, you name it. Therefore, we decided to bring local organisations together with global organisations to fight this phenomenon.”

As to accountability, Marwa mentioned a new lawsuit that both GCHR and Access Now are working on, saying, “We have also collaborated recently a few weeks ago in a lawsuit filed against a UAE surveillance company Dark Matter which hacked the device of prominent woman human rights defender Loujain Al-Hathloul. We wrote to the court an amicus brief, emphasising again that this victim does not have access to effective remedy. The court can actually exercise its jurisdiction to uphold human rights and most importantly send a message to the surveillance industry that they can indeed be held accountable.”

Marwa talked also about the advocacy efforts by MCCS for human rights due diligence, Marwa said, “Our role has been to expose where export controls have been lacking and also to add pressure on governments to regulate that industry.”

Asia Abdulkareem said, “INSM has also documented and reported on numerous cases of surveillance and digital attacks against Iraqi activists. This documentation has helped to raise awareness of the problem and has put pressure on the Iraqi government to take action.”

She added, “the Iraqi government has a history of cracking down on dissent, and human rights activists are often targeted by the government and non-state actors like the armed militias. Additionally, the Iraqi government is often slow to implement reforms, and it is unclear how long it will take for the government to pass and implement laws that protect digital rights.”

Samuel Jones, who joined online, talked about investors, saying: “Many of our investor partners have exclusionary screens for “controversial weapons,” that are fundamentally incompatible with international humanitarian and human rights law – nuclear, chemical, biological, cluster munitions, landmines, and others. We’re currently working with some of those partners, along with colleagues at Access Now, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, and other experts to develop similar criteria for spyware – meaning it would be excluded from investment portfolios – due to the emerging discourse suggesting it is also fundamentally incompatible with international law.”

As to their future work he said, “We have a huge job to do and I’m not sure if two or three years are sufficient but it’s definitely a priority fight for us and many of our partners. It’s one of our main goals to map surveillance technologies and spyware being used in the MENA region, including companies, their investors, their corporate structures, as well as the human rights abuses facilitated by the use of their technology.”

Click HERE to see the full IGF session or watch it below.