Journalists in Azerbaijan: No Escape

Azerbaijan is apparently a customer of the Israeli company NSO. Numerous journalists and human rights activists in the Caucasus republic were targeted with their spy software.

Khadija Ismayilova was always very careful. She knew she was being targeted. “You know all the time that you could be monitored,” says the 45-year-old journalist. She comes from Azerbaijan, a country in the Caucasus. Its government is known for human rights abuses, for suppressing the opposition and for persecuting journalists and activists.

Ismayilova is one of the most famous investigative journalists in her country. She has repeatedly reported on the economic interests of President Ilham Aliyev’s family. She was threatened at an early age, secret video recordings from her bedroom were published, and most recently she was imprisoned for a year and a half for alleged tax evasion. She was then not allowed to leave Azerbaijan for years. The organization Human Rights Watch called the trial against the journalist “politically motivated”.

The Azerbaijani has always tried to protect her sources as best she could. Likewise her family. For example, she used encrypted chat programs to communicate. Apparently none of this helped. Ismayilova has been monitored at every turn for years. In the spring of 2019, powerful surveillance software, the “Pegasus” program from the Israeli company NSO, had apparently been secretly installed on the journalist’s mobile phone.

The IT experts from the Amnesty International Security Lab in Berlin examined Ismayilova’s mobile phone and found digital traces of the espionage program on it. According to the forensic investigation, the last activity was probably only a few months ago, shortly before she left Azerbaijan.

Oppositionist and activist spied out

The entire mobile phone can be spied on unnoticed with the Trojan from NSO: e-mails, SMS, contacts, the calendar, photos and videos and much more. The software turns the phone into a bug and a surveillance camera. The monitors can hear, read or even see everything that is spoken and typed. Even if this takes place via actually encrypted chat programs, as was also used by Ismayilova.

Azerbaijan, data that journalists were able to see as part of the “Pegasus Project” suggest, is apparently a customer of the Israeli cyber tool manufacturer NSO. Numerous telephone numbers, which were presumably targeted with the “Pegasus” software, could be assigned to journalists, opposition activists and human rights activists in the Caucasus Republic.

There is a number there from Ilkin Rustamzade, an opposition activist who organized peaceful demonstrations and was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2014 for endangering public order. In 2019 Rustamzade was “pardoned” by President Aliyev. The European Court of Human Rights had previously assessed his detention as unlawful. After his release from prison, however, the reprisals continued. Rustamzade’s cell phone was probably attacked with the “Pegasus” Trojan. The activist Fatima Movlamli, who took part in the “Let’s talk about the dictator” campaign, was apparently targeted in 2019 as well. She was just 18 years old at the time. Fake profiles were created under her name on social networks, and private photos were published, including intimate recordings.

“Reasonable Measures” Against Abuse?

At the request of the international research team under the “Pegasus Project”, NSO announced that many of the items listed throughout the planned coverage were “false claims”. There is “no factual basis” for them. As an example of an alleged false accusation, a law firm hired by NSO cited the assumption that the firm might have helped steal and post intimate photos of an activist. The company also does not comment on specific customers.

Regardless of what they believe to be false information, NSO will continue to investigate “all credible allegations” about abuse of their programs and, if in doubt, “take appropriate measures”, such as switching off customer systems, as has happened several times in the past, NSO said. The company sees itself on a “life-saving mission” as its technology helps prevent terrorist attacks or smash drug trafficking rings.

Neither the NSO nor the Azerbaijani government wanted to comment on whether Azerbaijan is a customer of the company. President Aliyev has been trying for years to polish up the rather battered image of his country – for example through major international events such as the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, Formula 1 races or, most recently, as the host of European football championships. The world as a guest in Baku, so probably the calculation. The regime is getting help not only from sports associations, but also from members of the Council of Europe, some of whom are suspected of being bribed by representatives of Azerbaijan. Several German politicians have also attracted attention in recent years because of their uncritical stance and proximity to the Aliyev regime.

In Azerbaijan, systematic human rights violations are said to continue. Numerous political prisoners are said to still be in the prisons. The ruling family has evidently built up a system of maintaining power that journalists and their research perceive as a threat and therefore allows them to be monitored and investigated.

Contacts and sources in danger

The records of the Israeli company NSO suggest that many well-known journalists in the country were attacked with espionage tools. Sevinc Vaqifqizi, a colleague and friend of Khadija Ismayilova, was apparently one of them. In Azerbaijan, she reports on issues that are likely to be unpleasant for the regime: protests, political prisoners and possible electoral fraud. With the support of a grant from the organization Reporters Without Borders, Vaqifqizi currently lives in Berlin.

Investigations on her cell phone show that she was also monitored using NSO spy software. Since 2019, “Pegasus” has been active several times on your mobile phone, including on Christmas Eve 2020 and until spring of this year. It was clear to her that government agencies in Azerbaijan were monitoring journalists, says Vaqifqizi. But she could never have imagined “that they would use these technologies to track us journalists”.

Vaqifqizi fears that they could have received all private information such as photos or videos or contact lists and also information about all their sources. “When I found out about the surveillance, I immediately thought of them because they can get into problems with the state very quickly.”

Military expert in sight

Another possible victim is the journalist Jasur Mammadov, one of the most prominent experts on the Azerbaijani military. In 2014, when there was a wave of repression against journalists in Azerbaijan, Mammadov was also interrogated by security forces. He was told he would be thrown in jail if he didn’t stop reporting on the army. When asked, the Azerbaijani government refused to comment on the matter.

Mammadov fled the country. With his wife and two sons, they first went to Georgia by car. He now lives in Bielefeld, studies and works as a freelance journalist for German local media. He rarely writes about the Azerbaijani military on his blog or on Facebook. Nevertheless, the journalist was again targeted by the Azerbaijani state a few years ago. In 2019, his Azerbaijani mobile number was apparently identified by an NSO customer as a potential target of the surveillance software “Pegasus”. But he had left the mobile phone behind in Azerbaijan. He had taken out the battery and wrapped the device in plastic wrap.

Kristiana Ludwig, Hannes Munzinger, Miranda Patrucic, Andrew Sullivan, Paul Radu and Arthur Bouvart contributed to the research for this text.