CONCLUSION In October 2019, Iranian security agents lured exiled journalist Ruhollah Zam (an administrator of a popular Telegram news channel) from Paris to Iraq. There he was arrested and transferred back to Tehran. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced the capture on state television as well as through Zam’s own Telegram channel, boasting about their long reach across borders.114 As in the example of Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia, the case demonstrated an authoritarian regime’s willingness and capability to silence dissidents beyond its territory. Yet although such blunt operations draw public attention and help regimes send chilling messages into broader diaspora communities, the reality is they occur infrequently. Today, as this report has shown, transnational repression often unfolds in more subtle ways: through various forms of surveillance and harassment that aim to put activists under persistent pressure and constrain the opportunities they gained in exile. Authoritarian regimes perceive diaspora activists as a threat when such activists are able to raise public attention, garner support for civil society and opposition in the country, or disseminate alternative news and opinion (both at home and abroad). With close ties to the home country as well as contacts to international organizations, media, and policy circles, diaspora activists occupy a strategic position to leverage critical information against regimes. To a significant extent, therefore, practices of transnational repression are information controls used by regimes to monitor and disrupt information flows in cross-border activist networks. Methods such as targeted surveillance, online harassment, slander, and pressure against in-country relatives are all attempts to intimidate and silence diaspora activists and punish their attempts to gain to public attention. Digital technologies are key components to transnational repression as they enable regimes to follow and respond to diaspora activism with greater scope and speed. Activists’ reliance on digital media creates vulnerabilities and exposes sensitive information that state agents can use to threaten dissidents abroad and their cross-border networks. Moreover, digital threats are often carried out with little chance to identify perpetrators and hold them accountable. The complexity of today’s digital platforms and networks often means that potential targets are left in the dark about the actual capabilities of regimes to intercept communications and penetrate accounts. As a consequence, digital media not only create new opportunities for extending the extraterritorial reach of the security apparatus, but also reduce the costs of political control compared to more traditional methods of repression. By relying on a toolkit of transnational repression, regimes such as Egypt, Syria, and Iran are able to foster restraint and self-censorship among activists, undermine their ties to the home country, and raise their level of tension and stress. Even though state authorities cannot completely succeed in deterring activism in exile, they are still able contain some of its impact and outreach by imposing additional costs and risks on activists living abroad. The practices identified in this report represent deliberate and systematic interferences in the fundamental human rights of targets—namely the rights to freedom of expression and privacy. As such, practices of transnational repression seeking to shield regimes from criticism and accountability have a clear authoritarian intent. Threats against activists in exile and diaspora communities exemplify the broader trends of rising authoritarian politics and shrinking civic space. Authoritarian governments extend the reach of their repressive policies into the territory of other countries to target dissidents who often emigrated to escape similar restrictions on civic freedoms and rights at home. These states instrumentalize digital technologies to amplify their control over citizens and information flows beyond borders. And they employ increasingly invasive methods to spy on, compromise, and disrupt civil society networks in an effort to outmaneuver the basic protections activists rely on to secure their data and communications. As a consequence, civil society’s continued ability to use digital tools to freely exchange, coordinate, and organize is in danger.115 114 Radio Farda (2019, October 14). Iran TV Shows Film of Captured Dissident Apologizing to Regime. https://en.radiofarda.com/a/ irgc-says-it-lured-a-fierce-critic-in-exile-back-to-iran-and-arrested-him-/30216087.html. 115 Access Now (2019, August 29). Digital civic space under attack. https://www.accessnow.org/digital-civic-space-under-attack/; Freedom House (2018). Freedom on the Net 2018: The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism. https://freedomhouse.org/report/ freedom-net/freedom-net-2018/rise-digital-authoritarianism; Tactical Technology Collective. Shrinking Civil Space: A Digital Perspective. https://ourdataourselves.tacticaltech.org/posts/shrinking-civil-space-a-digital-perspective. 33