DEFENDING DEMOCRACY IN EXILE Policy Responses to Transnational Repression democracies provide a high level of protection against extraterritorial attacks, few people are able to reach them. Because so many democratic countries have adopted policies that harden their borders and discourage asylum seekers, people who advocate for human rights or defend democratic principles in harsh environments are often forced to remain in parts of the world where autocrats make the rules. The vast majority of transnational repression incidents in 2021, 74 percent, took place in countries rated Not Free by Freedom House. The Belarusian regime’s transnational repression campaign While authorities from Nigeria, Comoros, and Algeria targeted dissidents abroad for the first time in 2021, none of them took up the strategy with as much intensity as the regime in Belarus. Increasingly intolerant of peaceful opposition, Lukashenka’s government augmented its already extensive arsenal of repressive tactics with the aim of silencing critical voices around the world. Minsk was responsible for 31 percent of the transnational repression incidents recorded in 2021.7 Tens of thousands of Belarusians fled the violence unleashed by security forces after opposition leaders and protesters challenged Lukashenka’s fraudulent reelection as president in August 2020. Many sought asylum in Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and other countries to the west.8 Some went east to Russia, which Belarusians do not require a visa to enter. The most audacious act of transnational repression committed by Belarusian authorities was the forced landing of a commercial airliner traveling from Athens to Vilnius to arrest journalist and activist Raman Pratasevich and his companion, Sofia Sapega. Belarusian officials faked a bomb threat to divert the plane to Minsk and detain Pratasevich, who had left the country in 2019 and used a channel on the social media platform Telegram to document the regime’s brutality against protesters. In the months following his detention, authorities released several videos of Pratasevich that showed possible evidence of torture.9 4 @FreedomHouse Another striking example of the Lukashenka regime’s intolerance of dissent occurred during the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Belarusian authorities attempted to force sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya to return home after she publicly criticized her team’s coaches for mismanaging a track event. Tsimanouskaya was taken to the airport against her will by coaching staff, but she managed to contact Japanese police and avoid boarding the flight.10 The Pratasevich and Tsimanouskaya cases resulted in widespread condemnation of the Belarusian government. However, many other acts of transnational repression committed by Belarusian authorities did not capture the world’s attention. Unlike the incidents involving Pratasevich and Tsimanouskaya, most acts of transnational repression are undertaken through co-optation of or cooperation with authorities in the host country. In fact, because the complicity of host states is a crucial factor in the success of such efforts, truly unilateral acts of transnational repression are exceedingly rare. Belarusians living, working, or seeking refuge in Russia were consequently among the most vulnerable to transnational repression in 2021. Russia’s legal system and law enforcement agencies repeatedly aided and facilitated Lukashenka’s campaign of political persecution. Russian security forces acted on extradition requests from Belarus and detained people who, like Pratasevich, were accused of inciting antistate activity by running Telegram channels.11 Yana Pinchuk, who was awaiting extradition from Russia at the time of writing, faces 12 years in prison in Belarus for running three Telegram channels.12 Belarusians who had fled to Russia after participating in protests were quickly deported to Belarus despite real concerns that they could experience abuse in custody. For example, Alyaksey Kudzin, a mixed martial arts fighter who had allegedly been beaten and shot with rubber bullets while in police custody in Belarus, was unlawfully deported from Russia even after the European Court of Human Rights issued an opinion stating that he was at risk of being tortured if returned.13 Russian and Belarusian security services directly cooperated in the rendition of Belarusian activists from the country. In April 2021, two Belarusian men, one with US citizenship, were abducted from a hotel in Moscow by Russian police, handed over to the Belarusian security services, and driven over 400 miles to Minsk.14 Both men had connections to the Belarusian political opposition; one had been imprisoned a decade earlier #TransnationalRepression