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Defending Democracy in Exile

Download the 2022 Report Policy Recommendations
Download the 2021 Report
Understanding and Responding to Transnational Repression

What is Transnational Repression?

It is governments reaching across borders to silence dissent among diasporas and exiles, including through assassinations, illegal deportations, abductions, digital threats, Interpol abuse, and family intimidation.

It is a daily assault on civilians everywhere — including in democracies like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, and South Africa.

Who is at risk?|Everyday People

Critical voices that challenge authoritarian rule become voices to silence. Journalists and human rights defenders. Diaspora groups and family members of exiles. Political activists, dissidents and civil society leaders.

What appear to be isolated incidents when viewed separately—an assassination here, a kidnapping there—in fact form a constant threat across the world that is affecting the lives of millions of people and changing how activists, journalists, and regular individuals go about their lives. Transnational repression is no longer an exceptional tool, but a normal and institutionalized practice for dozens of countries that seek to control their citizens abroad.

Its impact on the rights of victims is severe. Even those who are not directly targeted may decide based on the threat against their community to remain silent. This is true of the most extreme violence: a single killing or rendition sends ripples throughout a huge circle of people. But even digital threats or family intimidation—the easiest and most common forms of transnational repression—create an atmosphere of fear among exiles that pervades everyday activities.

Jamal Khashoggi
Assassinated

Jamal Khashoggi was a prominent Saudi journalist who had formerly been close to the monarchy, but grew disillusioned with its repressive nature. He moved abroad in 2017 and began writing about democracy, including as a columnist for The Washington Post. In October 2018, he entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents necessary for his upcoming marriage. Saudi agents murdered him in the consulate and dismembered his body while his fiancée waited outside for him to emerge.

Country
Saudi Arabia
Host Country
Turkey
Jamal Khashoggi
Masih Alinejad
Family Targeted

Masih Alinejad is an Iranian journalist, author, and women’s rights and political activist who left Iran in 2009 and lives in the United States. In July 2021, the US Department of Justice revealed a plot to kidnap Alinejad from her home in Brooklyn and return her to Iran, possibly via Venezuela. Alinejad has previously faced other tactics of transnational repression. In 2018, her sister in Iran was forced to go on state TV to denounce her. In September 2019, her brother Alireza was arrested in Iran, and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. In April 2020, her mother was also detained and questioned. Like many other Iranian journalists abroad, Alinejad says she receives constant digital and physical threats against her life.

Country
Iran
Host Country
United States
Masih Alinejad
Paul Rusesabagina
Forcibly Rendered

Paul Rusesabagina is a political activist best known as the real-life hero of the movie Hotel Rwanda. He fled Rwanda in the 1990s after being warned of an assassination plot against him. He became a vocal critic of the government, first living in Belgium and then relocating again to the United States to avoid persecution from the Rwandan government. In August 2020 the Rwandan government kidnapped him while he was transiting through Dubai. After being held for at least three days incommunicado, he reappeared in custody in Rwanda, where he was sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges related to terrorism.

Country
Rwanda
Host Country
United Arab Emirates
Paul Rusesabagina
Praphan Pipithnamporn
Forcibly Rendered

Praphan Pipithnamporn is a Malaysian Thai anti-monarchy campaigner. She had been arrested multiple times in Thailand for her political activities and held in military detention. Fearing further persecution, she fled Thailand in January 2019 to Malaysia and registered as an asylum-seeker. Despite her protected status, however, Malaysian authorities arrested her in April 2019, and illegally returned her to Thailand in May that year.

Country
Thailand
Host Country
Malaysia
Praphan Pipithnamporn
Loujain al-Hathloul
Forcibly Rendered

Loujain al-Hathloul is a Saudi human rights activist known in particular for her campaigning for women’s rights in a strictly patriarchal society. In March 2018, she was detained in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and rendered on a private plane to Saudi Arabia. She was initially released, but two months later Saudi authorities arrested her again. She was held incommunicado for 10 months, during which time she was tortured. In December 2020 she was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison. Her sentence was later suspended and she was released in February 2021, but she is banned from leaving Saudi Arabia.

Country
Saudi Arabia
Host Country
United Arab Emirates
Loujain al-Hathloul
Transnational Repression - Raman Pratasevich
Arrested in Transit

Raman Pratasevich is a Belarusian political activist and journalist who sought asylum in Europe in 2019. He ran a popular Telegram channel that documented pro-democracy protests. In May 2021, Belarusian authorities faked a bomb threat to force a plane travelling from Athens to Vilnius to land in Minsk in order to arrest Pratasevich and his companion, Sofia Sapega. Shortly afterward, authorities released videos of Pratasevich that suggested he had experienced torture. Pratasevich was released from house arrest in January 2022 but still faces up to 15 years in prison in connection to his journalism.

Country
Belarus
Host Country
Greece
Raman Pratasevich
Transnational Repression - Idris Hasan
Detained

Idris Hasan is a Uyghur human rights defender who has lived in Turkey since 2012. In July 2021, Moroccan officials, acting on an Interpol notice, arrested him upon arrival at the airport in Casablanca. The Chinese government alleges Hasan is involved with a terrorist organization, an accusation frequently levied against Uyghurs. Despite the fact that Interpol cancelled the notice shortly after his arrest, Hasan remains in detention awaiting deportation to China, where he is at risk of torture.

Country
China
Host Country
Morocco
Idris Hasan

Origin & Host|Countries

Transnational Repression takes place all over the world. We found 36 origin states using physical transnational repression in 84 host countries since 2014.

Around the globe, states are employing a toolbox of diverse and aggressive tactics to control their citizens, or sometimes even non-citizens, abroad.

3.5 Million People at Risk
735 Compiled Cases
36 Origin Countries +4 in 2021
84 Host Countries

Transnational Repression Map

  • Origin Country
  • Host Country
  • Origin + Host Country

Each line represents a unique origin country-host country relationship through at least one incident of physical transnational repression. Every incident catalogued in the project is not mapped.

Host Country Case Studies 

Exiles and diasporas living in these nine countries face serious threats from abroad. The countries offer illustrative examples of policies and practices that can facilitate or prevent acts of transnational repression.

  • United States

    • View Case Study
    • Key origin states:

      China, Egypt, Iran, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia
    • Best practices:

      High level of awareness among officials; Use of targeted sanctions against perpetrators
  • Germany

    • View Case Study
    • Key origin states:

      Egypt, Russia, Rwanda, Turkey, Vietnam
    • Best practices:

      Proactive protection for targeted individuals; Oversight of extradition requests
  • South Africa

    • View Case Study
    • Key origin states:

      Rwanda
    • Best practices:

      Courts uphold the right to seek asylum; Expulsion of diplomats to impose accountability
  • Sweden

    • View Case Study
    • Key origin states:

      China, Eritrea, Russia
    • Best practices:

      National security framework identifies foreign state threats to individuals; Asylum process recognizes collective persecution
  • Turkey

    • View Case Study
    • Key origin states:

      Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan
    • Best practices:

      Special migration pathways for some vulnerable diaspora; Protection offered to some targeted individuals
  • United Kingdom

    • View Case Study
    • Key origin states:

      Bahrain, Pakistan, Russia, Rwanda
    • Best practices:

      Individuals warned of threats against them; Support for multilateral responses to incidents
  • Thailand

    • View Case Study
    • Key origin states:

      Cambodia, China, Laos, Vietnam
    • Best practices:

      Cooperation with UN High Commissioner for Refugees; Responsive to pressure from civil society about incidents
  • Canada

    • View Case Study
    • Key origin states:

      China, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia
    • Best practices:

      National security framework recognizes foreign threats against diaspora communities; Extradition requests and Interpol notices vetted
  • Ukraine

    • View Case Study
    • Key origin states:

      Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan
    • Best practices:

      Domestic criminal law used in cases of transnational repression; Visa free entry for many nationalities

Best and Worst Responses to Transnational Repression 

Host country policies can help protect individuals from transnational repression — or make them more vulnerable to attack.

Best practices: recognize the threat; law enforcement awareness; providing proactive protection. Worst practices: cooperating with perpetrators; conflation with ordinary crime; seeing targets as threats.

Origin Country Case Studies 

These are six countries that currently operate aggressive campaigns of transnational repression.

  • China

    • View Case Study
    • Tactics

      Assassination, Rendition, Unlawful Deportation, Assault, Spyware, Family Intimidation, Digital Threat, Interpol Abuse, Mobility Controls
    • Targets

      Minority ethnic and religious groups, human rights defenders, former insiders.
  • Turkey

    • View Case Study
    • Tactics

      Rendition, Digital Threat, Family Intimidation, Interpol Abuse, Mobility Controls
    • Targets

      Members of the Gülen movement, supporters of Kurdish autonomy, and leftists.
  • Rwanda

    • View Case Study
    • Tactics

      Assassination, Rendition, Spyware, Family Intimidation, Digital Threat, Mobility Controls
    • Targets

      Members of the diaspora, especially those that challenge the government politically or question its version of Rwandan history.
  • Saudi Arabia

    • View Case Study
    • Tactics

      Assassination, Rendition, Spyware, Family Intimidation, Digital Threat, Mobility Controls
    • Targets

      Political critics of the Saudi monarchy.
  • Russia

    • View Case Study
    • Tactics

      Assassination, Rendition, Unlawful Deportation, Digital Threat, Spyware, Interpol Abuse
    • Targets

      Former insiders and defectors that threaten the Russian regime. Chechens face extreme threats from the Chechen Republic.
  • Iran

    • View Case Study
    • Tactics

      Assassination, Rendition, Spyware, Family Intimidation, Digital Threat, Interpol Abuse, Mobility Controls
    • Targets

      Political opponents of the ruling regime.

A Grave Threat To|Democracy & Freedom

The Tactics of Transnational Repression

Authoritarian countries are silencing exiles and diasporas with tactics of fear and repression.

These tactics violate exiles’ fundamental rights and undermine the rule of law in host countries.

Freedom House - Transnational Repression Threats
Direct Attacks

Origin country tactics that physically reach the individual targeted.

  • Assasination
  • Assault
  • Physical intimidation
  • Unexplained disappearance
  • Rendition, i.e. abduction or kidnapping
Freedom House - Transnational Repression Threats
Long Distance Threats

Origin country tactics that do not require physically reaching the individual targeted.

  • Coercion-by-proxy such as family intimidation
  • Digital threat
  • Spyware
Freedom House - Transnational Repression Mobility Controls
Mobility Controls

When origin countries restrict individuals’ ability to travel.

  • Passport revocation
  • Denial of consular service, including issuing or renewing passports
  • Reporting passports as lost or stolen in order to detain individuals in transit
Freedom House - Transnational Repression Co-opting
Co-opting Other Countries

When origin countries manipulate host country institutions like police or immigration authorities to harass, detain, or transfer individuals.

  • Unlawful deportation
  • Detention
  • Rendition
  • Interpol abuse

A Call For|Accountability & Resilience

Leaders must end impunity and limit opportunities to target exiles.

View the full set of global and country-specific policy recommendations.

Host governments
  • Establish an official definition of transnational repression to be used by all government agencies. Use this definition to create a process for systematically recording cases of transnational repression that occur domestically.
  • Ensure that law enforcement officials, personnel at key agencies, and those working with refugees and asylum seekers are trained to recognize the targeting of exiles and diasporas.
  • Increase outreach to communities known to be targets for transnational repression.
  • Screen applicants for diplomatic visas for a history of engaging in transnational repression; expel diplomats if credible evidence of their involvement in transnational repression emerges.
  • Implement additional vetting for extradition requests and Interpol notices from the governments of countries known to engage in transnational repression; review the use of Interpol notices to deny immigration and asylum benefits.
  • Respect the right to seek asylum, and avoid implementing policies that shift the responsibility for the processing of asylum applications to third countries; limit the use of temporary and subsidiary forms of protection.
  • Restrict security assistance and arms sales to governments that perpetrate acts of transnational repression.
  • Impose targeted, coordinated, and multilateral sanctions on perpetrators and enablers of transnational repression.
  • Restrict the export of censorship and surveillance technology.
  • Use the voice, vote, and influence to limit the ability of Interpol member countries to target critics through misuse of Red Notices and other alerts. 
Civil society
  • Invest in digital hygiene trainings and make digital security resources widely available to targeted communities, reaching beyond professional activists and journalists.
  • Develop programming for individuals affected by transnational repression, including social, psychological, legal, and immigration support.
UN member states
  • Recognize transnational repression as a specific threat to human rights and work with like-minded governments to establish norms and develop multilateral responses.
  • Review and revise the protections that are offered to human rights defenders and other activists who engage with the UN to better address the risk of transnational repression.
  • Establish a special rapporteur for transnational repression.
Technology companies
  • Create a company-wide strategy to respond to transnational repression. Raise internal awareness and provide training on the tactics of transnational repression to avoid unwitting complicity.
  • Expand special protections and safety settings for people who are vulnerable to transnational repression.
  • Strengthen options for users to document transnational repression on digital platforms.
  • Publicly identify perpetrators, methods, and scale of digital transnational repression, insofar as such revelations do not expose victims to further harm. 
     

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|Executive Summary

Two Belarusian activists are abducted from a Moscow hotel and driven over 400 miles to Minsk, where they are charged with planning a coup.

A Uyghur woman in Canada receives yet another phone call from Chinese police urging her to cooperate and threatening to detain her family members should she refuse.

A Russian man who fled to the United States after security services stole his business is held on a frivolous Interpol notice and kept in US immigration detention for a year and a half.

A Rwandan journalist applies for asylum in Mozambique and then disappears—possibly into the custody of Rwandan authorities.

Saudi officials asphyxiate and dismember an exiled Saudi journalist inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul.

All of these are examples of transnational repression, in which governments reach across national borders to silence dissent among diaspora and exile communities. They are real events that have occurred since 2014, illustrating an enormous and growing threat to activists, journalists, and migrants around the globe. Nondemocratic states are employing diverse and aggressive tactics to control their citizens, or sometimes even noncitizens, in every region of the world.

Freedom House is engaged in a multiyear study of transnational repression. Its latest report, Defending Democracy in Exile: Policy Responses to Transnational Repression, published in June 2022, examines what is being done to protect exiles and diaspora members who are being intimidated and attacked by the governments from which they fled. The report assesses the responses mounted by host governments, international organizations, and technology companies. It builds on the findings of Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach: The Global Scale and Scope of Transnational Repression—the first global study of this dangerous practice, which Freedom House released in February 2021.

The project draws on an original database of 735 direct, physical cases of transnational repression that took place between 2014 and 2021. In each incident, the origin country’s authorities physically reached an individual living abroad, whether through detention, assault, physical intimidation, unlawful deportation, rendition, or suspected assassination. Freedom House assembled cases of transnational repression from public sources, including UN and government documents, human rights reports, and credible news outlets, in order to generate a detailed picture of this global phenomenon. The database captures 36 origin states conducting physical transnational repression in 84 host countries. This total is certainly incomplete; hundreds of other physical cases that lacked sufficient documentation, especially detentions and unlawful deportations, are not included in Freedom House’s count. Nevertheless, even such a conservative tally shows that what often appear to be isolated incidents—an assassination here, a kidnapping there—actually represent a pernicious and pervasive threat to human freedom, democracy, sovereignty, and security.

Moreover, each case of physical transnational repression is only the tip of an iceberg. The chilling effect of every attack ripples out into the larger community. And beyond the physical cases compiled as part of this research are the much more widespread tactics of “everyday” transnational repression: digital threats, spyware, and coercion by proxy, such as the imprisonment of exiles’ families in the origin country. For millions of people around the world, transnational repression has become not an exceptional tool, but a common and institutionalized practice used by dozens of regimes to control people outside their borders.

Freedom House’s research shows that:

  • Transnational repression is becoming a “normal” phenomenon as more governments around the world use it to silence dissent. More governments use transnational repression and do so far more frequently than is typically understood. In 2021, the governments of Belarus, Nigeria, Comoros, and Algeria were added to the database as perpetrators for the first time. The states that run transnational repression campaigns deploy a broad spectrum of tactics against their perceived enemies, from spyware and family intimidation to renditions or assassinations.
  • Some attacks are unilateral, but most involve cooperation with or exploitation of host country institutions. The most common forms of physical transnational repression—detentions and unlawful deportations at the origin state’s request—entail co-optation of the host country’s institutions. Most renditions also involve close collaboration with host country authorities to illegally transfer people to the origin country. In some cases, foreign states manipulate institutions in democracies in order to reach their target, directly undermining the rule of law. More frequently, authoritarian governments willfully cooperate with one another in their pursuit of exiles and diaspora residents because they share an illiberal set of values. In 74 percent of the incidents of physical transnational repression that took place in 2021, both the origin and the host countries are rated Not Free in Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World report.
  • Countries that are home to exiles and diasporas lack the tools to respond to attacks by authoritarian governments. Governments that host targeted groups and individuals need to improve their security, migration, and foreign policies to ensure that they offer appropriate protection for the vulnerable and are capable of enforcing accountability for perpetrators.
  • To facilitate transnational repression, nondemocratic governments work together to weaken universal human rights norms at international organizations. International organizations play a crucial role in documenting specific types of human rights violations stemming from the use of extraterritorial violence. However, in the absence of an agreed framework that identifies these violations as tactics of transnational repression, the efforts of international bodies remain ad hoc and disorganized. Some international forums are even the sites of transnational repression, as perpetrator states seek to exclude or punish activists who dare to participate or testify.
  • The full spectrum of transnational repression tactics must be addressed. Online harassment, coercion by proxy, mobility controls, and use of spyware do not garner the same level of attention as assassinations, but these less visible forms of transnational repression are intimately connected to physical attacks. Host governments and technology companies are lagging in their responses to digital tactics of transnational repression. Any effective policy to combat transnational repression in general needs to address the entire array of tools used by perpetrators.

Freedom House’s first report on transnational repression, Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach, consisted of an introduction, a description of the methods of transnational repression, case studies on six states—China, Rwanda, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—that have conducted significant transnational repression campaigns, and regional summaries covering countries not in the case studies.

The latest report, Defending Democracy in Exile, includes four essays that investigate new trends, describe best and worst practices among host country governments, explain the role of international organizations in confronting transnational repression, and demonstrate the importance of countering digital tactics. The report also features case studies on policy responses to transnational repression in nine important host countries: Canada, Germany, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Freedom House’s recommendations focus on what governments, technology companies, and civil society organizations can do to hold perpetrators accountable for transnational repression, increase resilience within democracies, and better protect vulnerable individuals and groups. In addition to general recommendations for policymakers, there are specific recommendations for each of the nine host countries studied.

Governments can use security, migration, and foreign policy improvements to combat transnational repression. Consistent accountability, especially in the form of targeted sanctions, will raise the cost of transnational repression for the regimes in question. Resilience efforts, particularly measures that reduce opportunities for authoritarian states to manipulate institutions within democracies, will make it harder to attack exiles and diaspora communities in practice. Protection for vulnerable people, both when they face credible threats and more broadly by respecting the right to seek asylum, will prevent harm and enable them to exercise their fundamental rights, ultimately strengthening the foundations of democracy in both host and origin countries.

Transnational repression is a serious threat to human rights, democratic governance, and state sovereignty, as well as a disturbing manifestation of global authoritarianism. But with accountability for perpetrators and compassion for their targets, it can be stopped.

About The Project

The project was made possible through the generous support of the Achelis and Bodman Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy.

To read more about the project, click here. Data is available on request from Freedom House through [email protected]. Please use the subject line “Transnational Repression Data Request.”

TNR_United_States

Unsafe in America: Transnational Repression in the United States

Potential targets of transnational repression in the United States include people who support human rights and democracy in their former homelands, and those who advocate for the well-being of friends and family they left behind.

Freedom House - Transnational Repression Origin Host Countries

About the Project & Acknowledgements

By studying transnational repression at a global scale, Freedom House aims to explain the repercussions of these campaigns, and to help policymakers and civil society think about how they can respond to protect exiles and diasporas.

Freedom House - Transnational Repression Grave Threats

Policy Recommendations: Transnational Repression

The recommendations listed below are intended to constrain the ability of states to commit acts of transnational repression and to increase accountability for perpetrators of transnational repression.

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