

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, and Australia.
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 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.
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 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.
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. In August 2020 the Rwandan government kidnapped him while he was transiting through Dubai, United Arab Emirates. After being held for at least three days incommunicado, he reappeared in custody in Rwanda, where he was charged with terrorism.
Gui Minhai is a Chinese-born, Hong Kong-based, Swedish citizen who worked as a book publisher and bookstore owner. His publishing included books on the personal lives of prominent members of the Chinese Communist Party. He was kidnapped from his apartment in Thailand in October 2015. He resurfaced in China months later during a state television appearance in which he claimed he had turned himself in for decade-old drunk driving charges. He was released from prison after two years, but was again arrested in early 2018. In February 2020, a Chinese court sentenced him to 10 years in prison for “illegally providing intelligence overseas.”
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.
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.
Transnational Repression takes place all over the world. We found 31 origin states using physical transnational repression in 79 host countries since 2014.
Around the globe, states are employing a diverse and aggressive toolbox of tactics to control their citizens, or sometimes even non-citizens, abroad.
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.
These are six countries that currently operate aggressive campaigns 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.
Origin country tactics that physically reach the individual targeted.
Origin country tactics that do not require physically reaching the individual targeted.
When origin countries restrict individuals’ ability to travel.
When origin countries manipulate host country institutions like police or immigration authorities to harass, detain, or transfer individuals.
View the full set of policy recommendations.
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A Tajik opposition activist applies for asylum but is deported from Austria to Tajikistan, where he is tortured and imprisoned.
An Iranian journalist in Europe wakes up and opens his phone to a stream of death threats from Iran.
The family of a Uighur in Canada is put in a labor camp in China—when the family gets out, they call and warn their exiled daughter to keep quiet while a Chinese official looks on.
A Russian man who fled to the United States when 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 opposition leader is abducted while in transit through the United Arab Emirates and reappears three days later in Kigali, facing trial for “terrorism.”
A Turkish teacher is pulled off the streets of Kosovo and bundled onto an airplane to Turkey.
Saudi officials asphyxiate and dismember a Saudi journalist inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul.
All of these are examples of “transnational repression,” or countries targeting their diasporas and exiles abroad in order to silence them. All of these are real events that happened in the last six years, emblematic of an enormous and growing threat to activists, journalists, and migrants the world over. All over the world, states are employing a diverse and aggressive toolbox of tactics to control their citizens, or sometimes even non-citizens, abroad.
This report is the product of an effort to understand the scale and scope of “transnational repression,” in which governments reach across national borders to silence dissent among their diaspora and exile communities. 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 project compiled a catalogue of 608 direct, physical cases of transnational repression since 2014. 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. The list includes 31 origin states conducting physical transnational repression in 79 host countries. This total is certainly only partial; hundreds of other physical cases that lacked sufficient documentation, especially detentions and unlawful deportations, are not included in Freedom House’s count. Nevertheless, even this conservative enumeration shows that what often appear to be isolated incidents—an assassination here, a kidnapping there—in fact represent a pernicious and pervasive threat to human freedom and security.
Moreover, physical transnational repression is only the tip of the iceberg. The consequences of each physical attack ripple out into a larger community. And beyond the physical cases compiled for this report are the much more widespread tactics of “everyday” transnational repression: digital threats, spyware, and coercion by proxy, such as the imprisonment of exiles’ families. 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:
The report consists of an introduction, a description of the methods of transnational repression, case studies on six states—China, Rwanda, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—conducting significant transnational repression campaigns, regional summaries covering countries not in the case studies, and recommendations.
Freedom House’s recommendations focus on what policymakers can do to hold perpetrators accountable for transnational repression and increase resilience within democracies.
Consistent accountability, especially in the form of targeted sanctions, will raise the cost of transnational repression for the regimes in question. Resilience efforts, especially measures that reduce opportunities for authoritarian states to manipulate institutions within democracies, will make it harder to attack exiles and diaspora communities in practice.
A thorough approach to resilience must include the recognition that excessively harsh policies intended to deter migrants and asylum seekers facilitate the external exploitation of a host country’s institutions, making it more likely that a persecuted individual will be denied asylum, deported, or otherwise mistreated. In order to proactively counter transnational repression, host countries should build trust with migrants through sustained outreach that informs them about their rights and the resources available to protect them.
Transnational repression is a serious threat to human rights and to democracy around the world, but with accountability for perpetrators and compassion for its targets, it can be stopped.
The project was made possible through the generous support of the Achelis and Bodman Foundation.
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.”
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