AMMAN (Middle East Eye) – Dozens of Jordanian politicians and activists targeted by the Zionist surveillance spyware, Pegasus, have called on their government to investigate how their phones were hacked.
Speaking at a press conference, officials and activists said up to 200 Jordanians had been targeted by Pegasus - software which has been found to hack smartphones and harvest data including photos, emails and voice messages, and turn devices into a tracking and monitoring devices.
Hussein Jiddi, a security information engineer, said the personal phone of Dima Tahboub, a member of the royal commission for the modernization of political systems, was among those targeted by Pegasus.
“After nearly 200 Jordanians received a notice from Apple that their phones were hacked, we checked the cell phones of a number of political and media personalities and discovered that the phones of Murad Addaileh, the secretary-general of the Islamic Action Front; journalist Husam Gharibeh; Badi Rafayyeh, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood; and Noor Abu Ghosh, a social media activist, were also affected by the spyware,” he said.
NSO has been involved in numerous scandals in recent years and has faced a deluge of criticism over reports that its software has been used to target political dissidents, activists and journalists around the world.
The company says its Pegasus software helps fight crime, but investigators have found it on the phones of journalists and dissidents.
Speaking to Middle East Eye, Tahboub, a leader at the Islamic Action Front, said she suspected the Zionist regime was behind the hack.
“I can’t separate the attacks on my political positions from this Zionist programming. There is nothing that I am hiding. I support totally the right of the Palestinian people to resist until Palestine is liberated.”

Arrests Spark Fury

Meanwhile, the arrest of 10 Jordanians who criticized their government and warned of corruption among the kingdom’s leaders has been met with fury and even rare public rebukes of King Abdullah II.
All the detainees, who belong to the Bani Hassan tribe, are alleged to have responded to calls by a prominent opposition figure to pressure the government over privatization and alleged corruption, according to lawyer Mohammad al Majali.
“Nine of the detainees were accused of spreading false rumors based on information on social media,” said Majali, who represents some of the detainees.
“This is a violation of the Jordanian constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression.”
The arrests were carried out earlier this week in a synchronized operation. Families of the detainees published videos showing security forces breaking into some of their homes to arrest them.
On Thursday, protests erupted in various parts of Jordan, calling for the detainees’ release and “the return of the country’s wealth”.