Freedom House Stifling Dissent in 2021 On May 24, 2021, Belarusian and Polish activists gathered at European Commission headquarters in Warsaw to protest the detainment of journalist Raman Pratasevich. Photo credit: Lapinski/NurPhoto via Shutterstock. T he use of transnational repression continued to expand in 2021. More governments sought to silence dissent beyond their borders for the first time, and governments with established track records as perpetrators of transnational repression helped one another intimidate, harass, and harm activists and other exiles. The cases of Belarus and Turkey illustrated both of these trends. Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime in Belarus extended its brutal crackdown on prodemocracy protesters beyond its own borders, operating both independently and with the help of Moscow, which aided in the detention and repatriation of Belarusian activists. The government of Turkey, long a relatively safe haven for Muslim refugees, increasingly pressured Uyghurs into silence as its economic relationship with China grew closer. These and other nondemocratic governments effectively worked together to reinforce a worldview that treats individuals everywhere as subjects of political power rather than citizens with rights and freedoms. The vast majority of transnational repression incidents in 2021, 74 percent,3 took place in countries rated Not Free by Freedom House. Authorities in Thailand unlawfully repatriated dissidents, political activists, and monks to Cambodia.4 The government of the United Arab Emirates detained a teenage Chinese activist who was transiting through the Dubai airport and allowed Chinese consular officials to try to coerce him into returning to China.5 Uzbekistani security services helped abduct a man from his apartment in Tashkent and return him to Turkey.6 The prevalence of transnational repression within nondemocratic countries reflects not only increased cooperation between autocrats, but also the inaccessibility of democratic countries for those fleeing repression. While freedomhouse.org 3