Breakdown of Transnational Repression 103 regime agents and loyalists continued to threaten activists in the United States, Britain, and other host-countries during the revolution’s first year and beyond. The threats posed by agents of transnational repression were realized in some cases. For example, after protesters met with the ambassador to Syria in Washington, DC, in mid-April to discuss their grievances, some of their relatives in Syria were detained or disappeared, and others received death threats (Public Broadcasting Service 2012). Additionally, when Syrian artist Malik Jandali performed at a July rally in Washington, DC, in support of the 2011 revolution, regime agents kidnapped his father and beat his mother in Homs, telling her, “We’re going to teach you how to raise your son” (Amnesty International 2011). The brutalization of Jandali’s parents was cited by activists across the United States and Britain as a deterrent to using voice. Media reports also detailed additional instances of Syrians’ relatives being harmed after they spoke out against the regime over the course of the uprisings’ first year (Devi 2012; Hastings 2012; Hollersen 2012; Parvaz 2011). Batul, a student who later became active in a youth chapter of SAC, explained that these reprisals made her family too fearful to go public in 2011. Her mother told her, “I understand we all want to voice our opinions. I understand we live in America, it’s a free country. But you’ve got to think of the others. Don’t be selfish. You’re not the one that’s going to face the harm – they are.” That’s why [we were] quiet for a year. Fears were also heightened by the presence of counter-demonstrators at protest events. Pro-Assad protesters took photographs and video recordings of revolutionary gatherings and verbally threatened individuals in Arabic, as I observed firsthand in Los Angeles in 2012. This marked a notable difference from the Libyan situation. Libyan American activist Dr. Saidi, whose wife is Syrian, attended protests for both causes; he attested that When I was marching with Syrians in the beginning, we always had people intimidating, taking photos. Sometimes they are on the streets, sometimes they are in a car. [This happened] much less with the Libyans. Much less. Because [although] there were a few pro-Gaddafi, because they saw everyone is against Gaddafi, none of them were willing to stand up or do this intimidation. These acts of intimidation by pro-Assad Syrians were not always empty gestures. One man named Mohamad Soueid was in fact arrested and convicted of documenting the DC-area opposition with the intent to “undermine, silence, intimidate, and potentially harm persons in the United States and Syria who protested,” according to the indictment (United States of America v. Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid 2011: 3). Pervasive regime threats also made my presence at protests suspicious to some participants. In January 2012, a woman observed me jotting down the names of protesters I recognized during a sidewalk rally in Anaheim. She asked in a flat tone, “Why are you writing names?” As I hurried to introduce myself, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press