A Saudi Arabian women’s rights activist accused three former US intelligence contractors of an illegal hack of her phone that was instrumental in her being arrested and later tortured in her home country, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday in a US court.
Loujain al-Hathloul helped lead a campaign to allow Saudi Arabian women to drive by livestreaming herself contravening the ban, which was lifted in 2018.
She spent almost three years in Saudi Arabian jails and is banned from leaving the country. The lawsuit was filed on her behalf in a federal court in Oregon by the privacy nonprofit organization Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Photo: Reuters
It alleged that the surveillance operation run by the three ex-contractors and DarkMatter, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) cybersecurity company, led to al-Hathloul’s arrest by the UAE’s security services.
From there she was extradited by private plane to Saudi Arabia, “where she was detained, imprisoned and tortured,” according to the lawsuit.
A 2019 Reuters investigation, cited by the lawsuit, revealed that al-Hathloul was targeted in 2017 by a team of US mercenaries who surveilled dissidents on behalf of the UAE under a program called Project Raven, which categorized her as a national security threat and hacked into her iPhone.
Al-Hathloul said that as she was tortured, interrogators mentioned communications they apparently learned of through “unlawful access” to her phone, the lawsuit says.
Saudi Arabian officials have denied torturing al-Hathloul and say she received a fair trial.
“No government or individual should tolerate the misuse of spy malware to deter human rights,” al-Hathloul said in a statement.
“This is why I have chosen to stand up for our collective right to remain safe online and limit government-backed cyberabuses of power,” she said.
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