Ecolo MP Samuel Cogolati was the target of a cyber attack. Without hesitation, the Chinese government is blamed.

French-speaking green party Ecolo announced this morning through Belga that party and parliamentarian Samuel Cogolati was the target of the cyberattack. The official communiqué does not provide many details about the nature of the cyber attack. However, there is a clear allegation against the Chinese government.

“If the Chinese Communist Party thinks they are intimidating us in this way, they are wrong,” Ecolo said in a statement. “We will continue to run the gauntlet as long as the ‘camps of shame’ are not closed.” Cogolati fought actively against the oppression of the Uyghurs in China.

Research on Chinese cyber attacks

The MP urges Belgium to urgently conduct an in-depth investigation into the scale of cyberattacks carried out by the Chinese government and other hostile states in our country. “The hackers don’t break into our servers for fun. Behind this is a methodology that targets human rights defenders and is organized on behalf of the Chinese regime. There must be complete clarity about the duration, nature and victims of the cyber attacks on Belgium,” says Cogolati.

Also in 2021, a series of cyber attacks on the Belnet network of the Ministry of Interior and Defense caused a lot of excitement. The State Department claimed last summer it had collected enough evidence to link the attacks to the Chinese regime, which it has of course always denied.

Cogolati believes that Belgium should not announce itself now, so the government should raise this incident through diplomatic channels. According to the politician, if an attack can be clearly attributed to a state agency, the latter must pay for the repair costs.