The government secretly listens to the conversations of thousands of citizens - Sevinj Vagifgizy

After last year's international scandal caused by the revelation of governments secretly using wiretapping programs to tap phones and correspondence, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) examined phones of journalists whose names appeared on the wiretap list. The smartphone of Azeri journalist Sevinj Vagifgizy, who works in Berlin, was found to be loaded with Pegasus software. Pegasus was developed by the Israeli company NSO and sold to totalitarian countries for the covert surveillance of undesirable citizens.

Note that the OCCRP is an association of media and individual investigative reporters in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Sevinj Vagifgizy answered Turan's questions.

- How did you find out that you were under surveillance?

- I received information about surveillance when I was in Berlin.  I was there on a scholarship and was supposed to study in Berlin for three months. Last July the OCCRP contacted me and asked to meet with me. They came to Berlin and told me that they had information about people being wiretapped at the behest of the Azerbaijani government.  I am on that list.

An IT specialist was with them, he checked my phone and found Pegasus, a program created by an Israeli company to track criminals. However, in Azerbaijan, the tool is used to secretly spy on journalists, lawyers, and opposition figures. With the help of Pegasus the government can know about all the actions in the phone of the tracked person, listen to conversations, use the front camera of the smartphone and determine the location of the monitored person.  Azerbaijani government has been listening to my phone since 2019.

 In its prepared report the Amnesty International noted the wiretapping of my phone. In Azerbaijan, more than a thousand people are covertly tapped in this way.

- How can one know that a person is secretly wiretapped?

- An IT specialist erased the program Pegasus from my smartphone; however, it is possible that the same program or other similar ones got into it later, and I continue to be bugged secretly. These programs are designed so that the person being bugged is unaware of what is going on. Nothing is required to connect to the program - there is no request to download or open a message.  The person being tracked is unaware of anything.

- Why are you being covertly tracked?

- It has to do with my journalistic work, I work for Meydan TV. I don't know any other understandable explanation for secretly listening to my conversations.

It's surprising that you don't have to be secretly bugged to know what journalists do, because everything we write, we publish openly. Anyone can read it, watch it...

It's not clear to me what they can know about me through covert surveillance.  But they interfere in my private life and jeopardize my sources of information. A journalist has the right to keep his sources private, and the government ignores that right.

- What did you change in your life and work after learning about the wiretapping?

- I started using digital methods to protect my information. I try to hide the names of the people who give me information to publish, so the government doesn't cause them problems.  When I talk to them, I warn them to be careful when giving me information, because we might be monitored.

- Why do you think the government is watching you? Could it be private individuals, organizations?

- The Israeli company NSO stated that it sells its software only to government security services.  That is, I can say that one of the government agencies conducts surveillance. But I do not know exactly which one.-