Freedom House leader was detained in Chad and then released after Chadian authorities said there was no evidence for the Equatoguinean government’s claims.310 Two other men accused of involvement in the alleged coup attempt were rendered from Togo; and four opposition members were rendered from South Sudan days after arriving there from Spain. Many dissidents also claim that the 2019 armed assault on Salomon Abeso, an exiled opposition member sentenced to death in 2002 and also accused of involvement in the alleged coup attempt, in London, was an assassination attempt. The Horn of Africa is broadly an active area, with cases of transnational repression carried out by the governments of Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Sudan. The Ethiopian cases documented by Freedom House took place before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, a transition that initially resulted in some prodemocratic reforms. However, reports in late 2020 indicate that as the internal Tigrayan conflict unfolds, the Ethiopian government has rendered Ethiopian Tigrayans, including some who serve in the country’s military abroad.311 Earlier, in 2014, there were three renditions of perceived political opponents from Kenya, and one each from Yemen and South Sudan. A 2017 CitizenLab report identified the use of commercial spyware against dissidents outside of Ethiopia, including in the United States and United Kingdom. Under Omar al-Bashir’s repressive regime in Sudan—which ended in 2019 when he was pushed out by military leaders and civilian protesters—several activists in exile were detained abroad, rendered, or unlawfully deported. In December 2016, three Sudanese in Saudi Arabia who expressed support for protests and civil disobedience in Sudan on social media were arrested and detained until their eventual deportation in July 2017.312 Separately, in 2016 and 2017, four South Sudanese exiles were rendered from Kenya. At least six sub-Saharan African countries have engaged in physical forms of transnational repression since the beginning of 2014. In addition to these six countries, there is evidence that Eritrea and Djibouti have engaged in transnational repression, though not in the time period or meeting the other criteria for inclusion for this report. Samatar Ahmed Osman, a Djibouti blogger living in exile, was subject to family targeting in 2019, when his wife was arrested in Djibouti and allegedly questioned about his activism.313 Eritreans as far afield as Europe report fears of state surveillance,314 and Amnesty International has documented harassment of Eritrean diaspora members and diaspora organizations. In one example, the Eritrean embassy in Nairobi allegedly interfered with the establishment and operations of a civil society organization, Eritreans for Diaspora for East Africa.315 Meanwhile, the conflict in Ethiopia has reportedly sparked a wave of renditions of Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia.316 freedomhouse.org 47