Greece has decided to ban the sale of spyware as the country grapples with a spiraling illegal wiretap controversy.
The government decision Monday comes after left-wing newspaper Documento published a list of 30 prominent victims targeted by Predator malware.
"We will proceed with a universal ban on the sale of illegal software in Greece, an act that will make Greece the first country in Europe to ban the circulation of malicious software in its territory," government spokesman, Giannis Oikonomou, told journalists, adding that a bill would soon be submitted to parliament.
Oikonomou noted that the newspaper presented allegations of politicians and businesspeople being spied on, including former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and several top ministers of the current New Democracy government, without the required documentation to back up the claim.
The list also included main opposition Syriza lawmakers like Olga Gerovasili, as well as prominent journalists.
The spyware scandal has shaken the Greek political scene, drawing strong reactions from opposition parties, as well as the European Union.
The editor-in-chief of Documento, Kostas Vaxevanis, visited the Supreme Court on Monday in order to submit material relevant to the allegations after Supreme Court Prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos ordered a preliminary investigation into the matter.
The journalist association expressed its intense concern over the stormy developments in the wiretapping scandal while at the same time taking shots at both the Kyriakos Mitsotakis government and the Justice Department.
'Rights at risk'
Meanwhile, Greece’s conservative government has been harshly criticized by a European Parliament committee investigating spyware use by European Union governments, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday in a report.
Spying on journalists and opposition leaders not only raises serious concern over media freedom and free expression in Greece but also violates the confidentiality of journalistic sources which is protected under the European Convention on Human Rights and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the watchdog said.
"For many months, I was in fear. In fear of meeting people, my sources, and exposing them," Stavros Malichudis, an independent reporter, told Human Rights Watch.
"It took me a lot of time to disengage from what happened and start doing reporting again," he added.
Malichudis discovered in November 2021 that Greece’s intelligence service, EYP, had spied on him, according to HRW.
The report said that Greece fell 38 positions within a year in Reporters Without Borders' 2022 press freedom index, with the organization listing it as the lowest-ranked EU country.
In September, dozens of witnesses were barred by the government from taking part in an inquiry on the so-called "Greek Watergate" surveillance scandal.
In addition, it said that all inquiry meetings would remain confidential and would be held behind closed doors, raising transparency concerns.
The government should not interfere with journalists’ jobs, said HRW, adding it should open a Greek parliamentary inquiry and cooperate with the European Parliament.
Surveillance scandal
On Aug. 8, Mitsotakis acknowledged that Nikos Androulakis, the leader of the opposition PASOK-KINAL party, was wiretapped by Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP) but denied knowledge of the operation.
The scandal first emerged on Aug. 4 when Panagiotis Kontoleon, then-head of the EYP, told a parliamentary committee that the EYP had been spying on financial journalist Thanasis Koukakis. After giving the testimony, Kontoleon resigned.
A parliamentary probe was launched after Androulakis complained to top prosecutors about an attempt to hack his mobile phone with Predator spyware.
Opposition parties blame Mitsotakis for the scandal, something he has denied, and have called for his government to hold snap elections.