DEFENDING DEMOCRACY IN EXILE Policy Responses to Transnational Repression Introduction I n December 2021, a German court convicted a former colonel in the Russian intelligence service, Vadim Krasikov, of the 2019 daylight assassination of Zelmikhan Khangoshvili, an ethnic Chechen asylum seeker and Georgian citizen living in Berlin. The judge in the case explicitly identified the Kremlin as behind the crime, stating that “in June 2019 at the latest, state organs of the central government of the Russian Federation took the decision to liquidate…Khangoshvili in Berlin.” 2 Even before the verdict was rendered, suspicions about Russia’s involvement led Germany to expel two Russian diplomats,3 and Krasikov’s conviction was followed by the expulsion of two more. The German foreign minister called the assassination a “grave breach of German law and the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany.” 4 The strong response by the German state to Khangoshvili’s murder is relatively unique. Numerous other governments including those of Rwanda, Turkey, Egypt, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, At least a dozen goverments target their nationals residing in Germany. Tajikistan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and China, have used tactics of transnational repression to target individuals residing in Germany.5 However, most incidents have not triggered criminal proceedings or diplomatic expulsions—forceful responses have instead been reserved for high-profile, violent acts of transnational repression. The German government demonstrates high levels of awareness of transnational repression through government reports, offering police protection to at-risk individuals, and responses to high-profile attacks as in the case of Khangoshvili. However, the government’s policy responses are inconsistent and have notable gaps. Germany’s national security framework does not adequately address foreign states’ threats to the human rights of individuals residing in Germany. Instead, a heavy focus on preventing terrorism and radicalization, as well as the prioritization of conflicting foreign policy goals, hamper the government’s ability to address transnational repression. In the migration sphere, efficiency trade-offs, such as housing asylum seekers of a specific nationality together, inadvertently put people at risk. Responses to the migration crisis of 2015— including scaling up translation capacity without implementing safeguards against surveillance by translators, and increased use of temporary forms of migrant protection—further exacerbate the system’s vulnerabilities. Suggested citation: Yana Gorokhovskaia and Isabel Linzer, “Case Study: Germany,” in Defending Democracy in Exile: Policy Responses to Transnational Repression (Washington, DC: Freedom House, June 2022), https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/germany. 2 @FreedomHouse #TransnationalRepression