Did Qatar seek to spy on celebrities critical of it?
Two weeks before an already controversial World Cup, the Gulf country is at the heart of a new controversy, accused of being the source of spying by hackers on nearly fifty personalities in the world. framework of the organization of the competition.
According to an investigation published Sunday in the British daily The Sunday Times, journalists, lawyers, or even the former boss of European football Michel Platini as well as a French senator, have been the targets of hackers hired to protect the reputation of Qatar.
These personalities have most often been targeted for their work or critical positions on the awarding and organization of the Football World Cup, which kicks off on November 20.
Among the personalities targeted are journalists, such as that of the Sunday Times Jonathan Calvert, who had investigated the alleged corruption maneuvers that led to the awarding of the event to Qatar, but also the French senator, Nathalie Goulet, who had accused Qatar of financing "Islamic terrorism", and the American-Hungarian lawyer Mark Somos, who filed a complaint against the ruling family of Qatar before the United Nations High Council for Human Rights.
Hacking of mailboxes and spying by microphones
The former president of UEFA, Michel Platini, yet a great defender of Qatar's candidacy to organize the World Cup, would also have been targeted.
This would have happened shortly before he was heard by French justice as part of an investigation into suspicions of corruption in the awarding of the World Cup to the gas emirate.
Michel Platini said he was "surprised and deeply shocked".
In a press release, his entourage explains that he is studying “all the legal follow-up that he is determined to give (…) to what appears to be a manifest and villainous violation of his private life”.
According to data retrieved by the Sunday Times and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), it was from 2019 that these operations began to hack into mailboxes or take remote control of the microphones and cameras of the computers of the targeted people.
"The investigation clearly indicates that the client (
of the hackers
) is the host of the next World Cup: Qatar", write the journalists.
In a statement sent to AFP, a Qatari official denounced "manifestly false and baseless" allegations, which are based "on a single source who claims that his client was Qatar, without providing the slightest proof".
“Qatar will not sit idly by (…), and all the legal options at our disposal are being studied to ensure that their leaders will be held accountable”, he warns again.
A controversial World Cup
Qatar is implicated for the treatment of workers on construction sites linked to the competition, respect for the rights of women and LGBT people, or even the possible use of air conditioning in the stadiums where the matches will be played.
Calls for a boycott of the competition have multiplied, without meeting massive echoes so far, for an event followed every four years by billions of people around the world.
In France, five major cities including Paris have given up installing giant screens and fan zones to broadcast matches during the competition.
