Morocco’s Parliament hosts conference on EP’s smear campaign

Moroccan lawmakers, lawyers, analysts and representatives of civil society are taking part in a conference hosted this Wednesday by the Moroccan Parliament to discuss the hostile campaign led by some French members of the European Parliament against Morocco.

The debate will focus on the use by MEPs of human rights and the Pegasus spyware as blackmail tools to get commercial and economic gains in Moroccan market which is expanding.

The Moroccan Parliament conference comes on the eve of a hearing scheduled by the European Parliament on Pegasus which continues Morocco bashing after a hostile resolution passed just few weeks ago.

An EP inquiry committee on the Pegasus spyware had revealed that Israeli NSO Company which developed the spyware had contracts with 22 customers in 12 countries of the 27-member European Union, while an internationally orchestrated campaign tried to shift the blame and focus on Morocco and other states in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, accusing them of breaching privacy laws and snooping.

“We have to recognize that all EU member countries use spyware, even if they don’t admit it,” said Dutch MEP Sophie in’t Veld, Head of the EP inquiry committee investigating Pegasus.

But French President’s entourage is spearheading a hostile campaign against Morocco inside European institutions in a bid to exert pressure on Rabat to preserve French interests amid a decline of Paris influence across Africa and worldwide.