TNR Research

Over three years after the Taliban takeover of the country, Afghanistan human rights defenders (HRDs) and women human rights defenders (WHRDs) face significant and unprecedented challenges. Those who are living inside Afghanistan are not only restricted from continuing their human rights work, but also live under constant threats to their safety due to the Taliban’s intensified violence and harassment. In particular, WHRDs grapple with the Taliban’s misogynistic policies, targeting them with systematic persecution and discrimination, resulting in the deprivation of their basic rights that amounts to gender apartheid.

After 15 August 2021, many defenders have been forced into hiding or have managed to flee the country for their survival. Those who sought refuge in transit countries – mainly Iran and Pakistan – face innumerable risks such as deportation, harassment, and economic constraints to their livelihood. Meanwhile, those defenders settled in western countries benefit from a comparatively greater security, while still facing their own set of difficulties, including concerns about their overall well-being and the lack of a long-term support system to sustain their human rights work while in exile.

Against this backdrop, this research illustrates the circumstances of Afghanistan’s HRDs both inside and outside Afghanistan, exploring the main problems that they face, their needs, as well as opportunities for resuming or continuing their work. With the aim to support to the Afghanistan human rights movement including through its diaspora groups, the research also provides workable recommendations to various stakeholders who are positioned to fulfill the needs of Afghanistan defenders. https://forum-asia.org/exilehrd/

An investigation by Access Now and the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto (the Citizen Lab) has revealed that the iPhone of journalist Galina Timchenko, head of Meduza, a leading Russian independent media outlet based in Latvia, has been infected with Israeli firm NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.

https://www.accessnow.org/publication/hacking-meduza-pegasus-spyware-used-to-target-putins-critic/

In a joint investigation, Citizen Lab and Access Now found that seven Russian and Belarusian-speaking independent journalists and opposition activists based in Europe were targeted and/or infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus mercenary spyware. This investigation describes hacking that took place between August 2020 and January 2023. Our findings also surfaced forensic artifacts that suggest (but do not prove) the possibility that at least five of the cases may be the result of targeting by a single NSO Group customer.

https://www.accessnow.org/publication/civil-society-in-exile-pegasus/

The 46-page report, “‘We Will Find You’: A Global Look at How Governments Repress Nationals Abroad,” is a rights-centered analysis of how governments are targeting dissidents, activists, political opponents, and others living abroad. Human Rights Watch examined killings, removals, abductions and enforced disappearances, collective punishment of relatives, abuse of consular services, and digital attacks. The report also highlights governments’ targeting of women fleeing abuse, and government misuse of Interpol.

Transnational Repression: a Threat to Rights and Security in the United States

Written Testimony by Annie Wilcox Boyajian, Vice President for Policy and Advocacy, Freedom House

House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence hearing

Safeguarding Dissident Voices: Addressing Transnational Repression Threats to Homeland Security

January 17, 2024

Ukraine has long been home to a vibrant native civil society sector as well as many foreign dissidents and exiled activists.

Key origin states: Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan

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

As reflected in Canada’s security policies, authorities at the highest levels are aware of risks posed by foreign governments to the country’s multiethnic population and to its institutions, and sovereignty.

Key origin states: China, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia

Best practices: National security framework recognizes foreign threats against diaspora communities; Extradition requests and Interpol notices vetted

For decades, Thailand has served as a haven for people escaping war and political repression in countries throughout Southeast Asia and the broader region.

Key origin states: Cambodia, China, Laos, Vietnam

Best practices: Cooperation with UN High Commissioner for Refugees; Responsive to pressure from civil society about incidents

The United Kingdom has been the site of numerous high-profile attacks against exiles and is an important destination for diasporas at risk of transnational repression.

Key origin states: Bahrain, Pakistan, Russia, Rwanda

Best practices: Individuals warned of threats against them; Support for multilateral responses to incidents

Turkey has been a place of refuge for individuals fleeing repression in neighboring countries and is home to many Uyghurs, one of the diasporas most at risk today of transnational repression.

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

Sweden is one of the few countries in the world that explicitly recognize, in their national security framework and through criminal law, the threat posed by repressive foreign governments to residents who engage in political activism.

Key origin states: China, Eritrea, Russia

Best practices: National security framework identifies foreign state threats to individuals; Asylum process recognizes collective persecution

South Africa hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees, asylum seekers, and diaspora members, largely from other African countries.

Key origin states: Rwanda

Best practices: Courts uphold the right to seek asylum; Expulsion of diplomats to impose accountability

Germany hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world and at least a dozen governments target their nationals residing in Germany, including the most prolific offenders like Turkey and China.

Key origin states: Egypt, Russia, Rwanda, Turkey, Vietnam

Best practices: Proactive protection for targeted individuals; Oversight of extradition requests

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.

Key origin states: China, Egypt, Iran, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia

Best practices: High level of awareness among officials; Use of targeted sanctions against perpetrators

The Iranian regime’s expansive definition of who constitutes a threat to the Islamic Republic contributes to the breadth and intensity of its transnational repression campaign. The authorities frequently label the targeted dissidents and journalists as terrorists, using the term as a blanket justification for violence and disregard for due process. The campaign incorporates the full spectrum of transnational repression tactics, including assassinations, renditions, detentions, unlawful deportations, Interpol abuse, digital intimidation, spyware, coercion by proxy, and mobility controls. These tools have been deployed against Iranians in at least nine countries in Europe, the Middle East, and North America.

The Russian government conducts highly aggressive transnational repression activities abroad. Its campaign, which heavily relies on assassination as a tool, targets former insiders and others who are perceived as threats to the regime’s security. The government pairs this campaign with control over key cultural institutions operating abroad, in an effort to exert influence over the Russian diaspora. Unlike other states profiled in this report, however, the government does not use coercive measures against the Russian diaspora as a whole. Instead, it focuses on repressing activism within its own borders and on maintaining control of the domestic information environment to ensure that exiles do not reach domestic audiences.

The Saudi Arabian government is perhaps the best known in the world for targeting its nationals abroad. The brutal 2018 murder and dismemberment of dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the country’s Istanbul consulate brought transnational repression into popular awareness. Khashoggi’s killing was not an isolated event, but rather the outcome of an increasingly physical, targeted campaign against critics and former insiders, including members of the royal family, that has rapidly escalated since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began his rise to power in 2015. This campaign has included extensive use of spyware, coercion by proxy, detentions, assaults, and renditions in nine countries spanning the Middle East, Europe, North America, and Asia.208 Facilitating Riyadh’s extraterritorial efforts closer afield is a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) security agreement that sets broad parameters for cooperation against dissidents.

Rwandan transnational repression is exceptionally broad in terms of tactics, targets, and geographic reach. Rwandans abroad experience digital threats, spyware attacks, family intimidation and harassment, mobility controls, physical intimidation, assault, detention, rendition, and assassination. The government has physically targeted Rwandans in at least seven countries since 2014, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Kenya, as well as farther afield in South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Germany. Rwandans as far-flung as the United States, Canada, and Australia report intense fears of surveillance and retribution. The cases documented by Freedom House represent a small fraction of alleged incidents, but provide a useful window into the extent and methods of the Rwandan government’s campaign, especially when taken into consideration alongside interviews, existing research, and the broader pattern of allegations.

The Turkish state’s current campaign of transnational repression is remarkable for its intensity, its geographic reach, and the suddenness with which it escalated. Since the coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in July 2016, the regime has pursued its perceived enemies in at least 31 different host countries spread across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The campaign is also notable for its heavy reliance on renditions, in which the government and its intelligence agency persuade the targeted states to hand over individuals without due process, or with a slight fig leaf of legality. Freedom House catalogued 58 of these renditions since 2014. No other perpetrator state was found to have conducted such a large number of renditions, from so many host countries, during the coverage period—and the documented total is almost certainly an undercount.

Policy recommendations for governments of countries that host exiles and targeted diasporas.

This brief describes new cases and other developments in transnational repression from 2022. Freedom House’s database now includes information on 854 direct, physical incidents of transnational repression committed by 38 governments in 91 countries around the world since 2014.1 Last year, Freedom House recorded 79 incidents committed by 20 governments. The most prolific perpetrators of transnational repression continue to be the governments of China, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, and Tajikistan. However, more and more governments, from Djibouti to Bangladesh, are employing violence and harassment to repress critics living abroad and are managing to escape both international and domestic accountability.

China conducts the most sophisticated, global, and comprehensive campaign of transnational repression in the world. Efforts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to pressure and control the overseas population of Chinese and members of minority communities are marked by three distinctive characteristics. First, the campaign targets many groups, including multiple ethnic and religious minorities, political dissidents, human rights activists, journalists, and former insiders accused of corruption. Second, it spans the full spectrum of tactics: from direct attacks like renditions, to co-opting other countries to detain and render exiles, to mobility controls, to threats from a distance like digital threats, spyware, and coercion by proxy. Third, the sheer breadth and global scale of the campaign is unparalleled. Freedom House’s conservative catalogue of direct, physical attacks since 2014 covers 214 cases originating from China, far more than any other country.