GOING AFTER THE FAMILY 11 families by mobilizing anonymously, or by carefully selecting the venues in which they would reveal their identities. A British-Libyan doctor-turned-organizer attested that ‘Al-Jazeera initially wanted me to come on TV and speak, and I was like no, I can’t. I have family in Libya and if they show my face and my name that’s it, they will be rounded up’. He instead worked behind the scenes to amass humanitarian aid without associating his name with the revolution. Others concealed their identities during protests by covering their faces. In London, respondents attested that they did so initially because ‘I had family in Libya’ and officials inside the embassy ‘were filming people protesting’. This surveillance also occurred outside of Syrian embassies in 2011 (Amnesty International, 2011), and Syrians who protested publicly in person or online without permission from their parents were chastised for being careless with their relatives’ safety. Some activists shifted into self-censorship after repression at home increased. For example, in 2018, Egypt’s parliament passed legislation giving the state new powers to regulate social media accounts, resulting in intensified monitoring of social media at home and abroad (Amnesty International, 2018). UK-based activists also reported receiving anonymous messages on Facebook threatening consequences for their families if they did not cease their criticisms. As a result of these increased threats, one Muslim Brotherhood member decided to keep ‘anything political off my Facebook page’. He also refrained from presenting himself openly as a researcher and advocate, kept his participation in meetings and events private, and declined to author reports using his real name. In a similar case, an Iranian women’s rights advocate attested that one of her colleagues chose to withdraw from a public panel with other diaspora dissidents because his family members were being ‘held hostage in Iran’. In reflecting on self-censorship in the diaspora, she added, ‘this is very dangerous because it risks atomizing activism’. Activists recognized that proxy punishment often succeeded in isolating activists from one another and from their families, thus disempowering the broader community from advocating publicly against regimes, in accordance with their rights and liberties abroad. Yet, they had no solution for this dilemma. As a result, public anti-regime activism was delimited to a minority of highly motivated elites and well-resourced individuals. Meanwhile, respondents attested that the majority of community members worked from behind the scenes, or remained too fearful to act at all. SUMMARY AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS In recent years, studies of transnational repression have brought important attention to how authoritarian regimes persecute exiles and diaspora communities abroad. At the same time, this paper demonstrates that authoritarian governments and their agents do not need to physically reach across borders into the territory of other states in order to repress their diasporas. To silence, punish, and control activists abroad, they alternatively exert coercive leverage against dissidents’ families in the home-country. As our study shows, proxy punishment comes in different forms that range in severity from physical violence and incarceration to verbal threats and travel bans. These methods are relatively cheap for regimes to enact since state officials neither need to send covert agents into a foreign territory nor manipulate outside authorities to capture and extradite their residents. All tactics within the repertoire of proxy punishment are effective, however, in making diaspora activism a high-risk, high-cost activity for individuals and their primary social groups. After explaining the five major tactics regimes use to punish relatives and impose social-psychological pressures on diaspora members, our analysis demonstrates how proxy punishment’s deterrent effects are mitigated by two mechanisms: (1) activists’ political commitment and (2) social capital in the host-country. Diaspora members with weak commitment to activism and weak social capital responded to the threat of proxy punishment by going silent in order to protect their families. Those with a strong commitment to activism and strong social capital chose instead to fight back against regimes. Most diaspora members, however, chose to navigate between protective and principled action by either attempting to trick the regimes into leaving their families alone, cutting off communications with their relatives, or self-censoring their activities and visibility abroad. These members had the motivation to contest regimes, but not the means to offset the costs of doing so. Taken together, activists from Syria, Egypt, Iran, and Libya required both the