A PP deputy tries to prevent a European parliamentarian from talking to TV3 about espionage with Pegasus

The deputy of the Popular Party Pablo Hispán has tried to prevent this Monday that the Dutch parliamentarian Pieter Omtzigt gave some statements to the Catalan channel TV3 after leaving a hearing on espionage with ‘Pegasus’ in a commission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , held in Paris. The popular has approached Omtzigt to warn him that TV3 is an “independence television” and “unbalanced”, an attitude that has been denounced by both the network and the College of Journalists of Catalonia.

The correspondent for the Catalan chain in the French capital, David Melgarejo, explained that despite the fact that the PP deputy “he got in the way” when trying to interview the Dutch parliamentarian, who is also the rapporteur in the commission that has met to listen to the testimonies of victims of the Pegasus spy system, “it has not been successful”.

💥 A PP deputy tries to prevent a TV3 interview

👉 The correspondent of @tv3cat to Paris, @DavidMelgarejo_has seen Pablo Hispán demand the speaker of the Pegasus report that he does not attend #PlantaBaixaTV3

🔗 https://t.co/Ozn4u2tcS8 pic.twitter.com/zy11Xd8F1x

— Ground floor TV3 (@plantabaixatv3) December 12, 2022

For its part, the Association of Journalists of Catalonia has stated that “political representatives should be the first to respect the work of the press.” “Discrediting ourselves because they don’t like the information we give has an undemocratic bias and little to do with freedom of expression and freedom of the press, fundamental rights in a democracy,” the association has defended.

The political representatives have to be the first to RESPECT the feminine woman. Discredit us because they don’t like what we report about a little democratic bias and little ligat to freedom of expression and freedom of the press, fundamental rights in democracy https://t.co/RMVqofXJpB

— Col·legi de Periodistes de Catalunya (@periodistes_cat) December 12, 2022

Finally, according to La Vanguardia, Omtzigt later spoke about the incident with the media and Hispán himself has also made statements to the press, including TV3.

Politicians and journalists have participated in the session of the Commission for Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on espionage with ‘Pegasus’. Among them, the ERC MEP Diana Riba, who has appeared as a spy, as well as as vice-president of the European Parliament commission that investigates the use of ‘Pegasus’ and other ‘spyware’, according to Europa Press.

In his speech, Riba has maintained that this espionage has shown that “the Spanish State has a clear interest in knowing what our political and legal strategies are at all times and will use any system at any cost to obtain the information.”