'Human rights situation in Saudi Arabia is the worst ever': Dissident Yahia Assiri

Guardian Nigeria

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00:00Hello and welcome to TET-A-TET, France24's flagship interview show.

00:09Our guest today is Yahya Asiri.

00:11He's an exiled Saudi activist who founded the NGO Al-Quss for Human Rights in the United

00:18Kingdom, where he lives.

00:20He was granted refugee status back in 2017.

00:24Thank you very much for being with us.

00:27Thank you very much, Marc.

00:29So back in May, you filed a lawsuit in the UK against Saudi Arabia over what you described

00:36as cyber attacks against you using the Israeli-made Pegasus and Quadrim spywares.

00:43In mid-October, the High Court of London said, ruled actually, that you could have the right

00:49to serve the legal claim to Saudi Arabia.

00:53Can you tell us why you decided to sue your native country?

01:00Thank you very much.

01:01First of all, I have been hacked since 2018 and I was very busy to do the work and I was

01:09expecting the hacking from Saudi Arabia.

01:12I was expecting the challenge with the regime because they want to silence everyone.

01:17I know I am still making some noise about the violations and my friends, my colleagues,

01:25they have been arrested inside the country and they have been targeted outside.

01:29So what's happened to me, it was expected and I'm aware of the risk that we are taking.

01:36However, since 2018, they keep hacking me several times.

01:40They used several spywares.

01:45Then I noticed that if I keep silent or if I keep busy with that work for the human rights

01:52without trying to bring the accountability for the violators, they will keep doing the

01:58same.

01:59So that's why I decided to try to bring some accountability to show the world what is the

02:05behavior for the Saudi regime and trying also to stop the regime from doing so.

02:11Right.

02:12So you have evidence that Saudi Arabia used especially the Pegasus spyware that was obviously

02:22a big scandal a few years ago when a consortium of journalists revealed that it had hacked

02:28to phones around the world.

02:29Your phone was on the list, your phones actually, because you have several of them.

02:36What exactly took place?

02:41First one, in 2018, I received a message.

02:46I was very careful about opening any links.

02:52But when I received the message, I tried to transfer the message to a spare computer in

02:58the office.

02:59The spare computer has no information on it.

03:04There is nothing to worry about.

03:07When I opened the link, it was about court suing against me in Saudi Arabia.

03:14So I was trying to understand what's going on.

03:17But when I opened the link from another device, it just opened the website for the minister

03:26of interior without seeing the court documents.

03:29But they say there's documents for you and they put my name, my date of birth, and it

03:36was the official website for the minister of interior.

03:39At that time, I felt the regime will not be stupid that much to hack me with the official

03:46website for the government.

03:48Then I opened the link from the device at that time.

03:52When I opened the link, my device starts to looping with Apple logo, then starts looping

04:01for a while.

04:02Then I switched it off and on.

04:05It's talk about two minutes, three minutes on, then starts looping again.

04:10When I contacted several experts like Amnesty Tech and frontline defenders and Citizen Lab,

04:22they checked my device and they confirmed that it has been hacked.

04:29In the lawsuit, you're saying that Saudi officials obtained Pegasus software back in

04:342017, and that one of the officials in Saudi Arabia who was involved, according to the

04:43lawsuit, is Saud bin Abdullah al-Qahtani, who had several high-level government roles

04:50and worked closely with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

04:54Do you think that he's the one behind the hacking of your devices and of others?

05:02I think he's heavily involved in the situation.

05:07Basically Saud al-Qahtani, several times he announced something like he is involved.

05:16In one occasion, he asked for a blacklist for people and he started to gather names

05:21for the blacklist people.

05:24In another occasion, there is some leaks.

05:28He used his personal email to contact with Italian hacking company.

05:37He said in the email that he used, his personal email, he said he's working with the Royal

05:41Court and trying to buy some spywares.

05:47In several occasions that Saud al-Qahtani, it was clear that he's involved.

05:54In this hacking, there's several hints and several things that's dropping the hints about

06:03Saud and his involvement.

06:06His name has also been mentioned after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, six years ago now

06:12in the Saudi consulate in Turkey.

06:18At the time of the big scandal, the CEO of the Israeli maker of Pegasus, NSO company,

06:25said the company didn't find any evidence that Jamal Khashoggi's devices were hacked.

06:31But in the lawsuit that you filed, you said that his wife and fiancé had actually been

06:37hacked.

06:38Is the assumption that his phone had been hacked in order to track him?

06:44I strongly believe Jamal hacked at that time because his phone had been hacked and myself

06:52and several people, they were in contact with Jamal, were hacked at that time.

06:58After the first, or after the attempt to hack my mobile in May 2018, after that, within

07:08a few months, they killed Jamal Khashoggi.

07:12So I don't think, I strongly believe, even if I don't have forensic evidence about that,

07:19I strongly believe that Jamal had been hacked because they, he were closely monitored and

07:28several people around him, including his fiancé, had been hacked.

07:33So I don't think he is away from this hacking.

07:39In addition to spyware, you claim that you have received in the United Kingdom explicit

07:44threats.

07:46Three years ago, I believe a knife was found outside your home.

07:50I understand your wife and your son were approached and told that if they disagreed with your

07:56advocacy, they could get help from the Saudi embassy.

08:00I mean, have there been any investigations into those strange incidents?

08:08First of all, when I talked to the government, they told me to talk to the police.

08:13When I talked to the police, they have not taken it seriously, especially when I showed

08:18them the messages about the knife.

08:19Someone told me, we are waiting for you outside the home.

08:24You don't need to call the police, come to discuss things.

08:28Then I tweeted about it.

08:31Then they sent me an emoji for a knife.

08:33Then I found out there's a knife outside the house.

08:37When I talked to the police, they sent me someone.

08:40This officer, he told me he will not do any investigation.

08:45I asked him to do fingerprints and to check the CCTV around the house, and he refused.

08:53I went to the security company in the area, in the development where I was living, and

08:59security told me the police not allowed them to show me the CCTV unless there is permission.

09:07Then when I published that in the media, they talked to me, the government, and they said

09:13the information from the officer was wrong, and they are doing the investigation.

09:17They told me I don't need to worry, I am safe, and they are aware of everything, and

09:24the investigation is ongoing, and they know what's going on, and they will let me know

09:29about the investigation.

09:31But we are in 2024, and they have not received any information yet.

09:36Right.

09:37Since the killing of Jamal Khashoggi had essentially made Saudi Arabia and the Crown Prince a pariah,

09:44he's now back from the cold, if I may say, has the situation of human rights in Saudi

09:52Arabia improved?

09:53I mean, I looked up, the number of executions up to the month of October is the highest

10:01total in 30 years.

10:03Yeah, unfortunately, the execution is the highest numbers, and also not just the execution,

10:13the torture.

10:13Unfortunately, there is no accountability for people committed severe torture and the

10:19sexual harassment behind the bars.

10:23The number for the people arrested because their opponent or because of their freedom

10:30of expression have been increased, and right now the freedom of expression is the worst

10:35situation ever in our history.

10:38We never being a democratic country, we always used to the repression, but the situation

10:43right now since 2017 is keep going from worse to worse, and they paid large amount of money

10:51for the PR and trying to normalize the situation with Mohammed bin Salman and trying to keep

10:58the relation with the West as normal as before the killing for Jamal Khashoggi.

11:05But the human rights situation, it is the worst situation ever.

11:09Nobody in the country, nobody at all allowed to say anything except if there is permission

11:15from the authority, and they are monitoring people very harshly, very closely for every

11:22single tweet, for every single word, and they sentenced people for years and years behind

11:28the bars for just single tweets.

11:30And it's escalating the sentence in the presence from two years to five years, and now we have

11:38seen sentence for 50 years, 45 years just for tweets.

11:43Yahya Asiri, I want to thank you very much for appearing here on Friends24 from London,

11:49and thank you all for watching this edition of Tete-a-Tete here on Friends24.

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