...a forensic examination of Tajer’s phone by researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto has found that the lawyer’s phone was hacked on multiple occasions in September 2021 by a government client of NSO Group, the Israeli spyware maker.

A separate investigation by the Pegasus Project – a media consortium investigating NSO Group which includes the Guardian and is coordinated by the French non-profit Forbidden Stories – has also identified 20 Bahraini officials who are close to the government and may have been targeted for surveillance...

The mobile numbers – including those of loyalists close to Bahrain’s ruling family – appeared on a leaked database that the Pegasus Project believes contains the phone numbers of individuals who were selected as possible surveillance targets by clients of NSO.

While the appearance of a person’s mobile number is not evidence that the person was hacked, the Pegasus Project has previously published stories about dozens of individuals...whose numbers appear on the list and whose phones were targeted or hacked by clients of NSO...

When successfully deployed against a target, Pegasus can infiltrate a mobile phone, giving the user of the spyware full access to phone calls, text messages, encrypted messages and photographs. It can track a mobile phone user’s location and turn the phone into a remote listening device.

NSO has said its government clients are only meant to use Pegasus spyware to target serious criminals and terrorists. The company has strongly denied that the leaked database has any connection to the Israeli firm and said the phone numbers on the list are not targets of NSO customers.

Intent on ensuring there would not be any other uprisings, Alwadaei said the government was seeking to keep all activists and political actors “within their control”.