Transnational repression is a type of political repression conducted by an authoritarian state outside its borders. It often involves targeting political dissidents or critical members of diaspora communities abroad and can take the forms of assassinations and/or enforced disappearances of citizens, among others.[1][2][3] Freedom House has documented its rise worldwide in recent years, prompting response from agencies such as the FBI.[4][5]
According to Freedom House, the most prolific actors involved in transnational repression in 2022 were the governments of China, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, and Tajikistan.[6] Other nations of concern included Iran, Rwanda, and Saudi Arabia.[7]
International relations scholar Laurie Brand asserts that autocracies face specific challenges and opportunities in the international sphere that affect authoritarian practices. Specifically, the rise of transnationalism and practices that transcend national borders have led autocracies to develop strategies aiming to manage their citizens' migration.[8] According to political scientist Gerasimos Tsourapas, global autocracies engage in complex strategies of transnational repression, legitimation, and co-optation as well as cooperation with non-state actors.[9]
Sociologist Dana M. Moss has argued for a typology of transnational repression,[10] as described below:
| Lethal retribution | The actual or attempted assassinations of dissidents abroad by regime agents or proxies. |
| Threats | Verbal or written warnings directed to members of the diaspora, including the summoning of individuals by regime officials to their embassies for this purpose. |
| Surveillance | The gathering and sending of information about co-nationals to the state security apparatus by informant networks composed of regime agents, loyalists, and coerced individuals. |
| Exile | The direct and indirect banishment of dissidents from the home country, including when the threat of physical confinement and harm prevents activists from returning. |
| Withdrawing scholarships | The rescinding of students’ state benefits for refusing to participate in regime-mandated actions or organizations abroad. |
| Proxy punishment | The harassment, physical confinement, and/or bodily harm of relatives in the home-country as a means of information-gathering and retribution against dissidents abroad. |
In June 2023, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated that Turkey's failure to ratify Sweden's NATO membership bid is part of its campaign of transnational repression.[11][12]
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See also: Transnational repression by China |
During a June 2022 briefing by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Wang Wenbin accused the US and UK of cooperating in transnational repression of Julian Assange.[13]
In December 2021, the Transnational Repression Accountability and Prevention (TRAP) Act became law as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022.[14] The law aims to combat abuse of Interpol notices.[15][16]
In March 2023, a bipartisan group of United States senators introduced the Transnational Repression Policy Act.[17][18] The proposed law would mandate that the intelligence community identify and share information about perpetrators of transnational repression in the United States.[19] In October 2023, the Government Accountability Office reported that the US does not have adequate laws to combat acts of transnational repression.[20]
In March 2022, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken characterized the Chinese government's attempts to silence Uyghur activists outside its borders as part of a campaign of transnational repression.[21][22]
In April 2023, the United States Department of Justice indicted Chinese operatives with crimes related to a transnational repression campaign utilizing a Chinese police overseas service station in Manhattan.[23][24] Following the indictments, the FBI described seeing an "inflection point in the tactics and tools and the level of risk and the level of threat" in transnational repression.[25]
In July 2023, the United States Department of State labeled the Hong Kong Police Force's bounties on eight prominent dissidents living abroad as an instance of "transnational repression efforts."[26][27]
A 2022 Center for American Progress reported that some of the most notable transnational repression efforts of the Chinese government, such as the Causeway Bay Books disappearances, have been coordinated by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). The report called for initiatives to better understand the MPS' activities overseas.[28]
A 2023 report published by the University of Sheffield called for increased use of Magnitsky legislation in response to the transnational repression of the Uyghur diaspora.[29] A report the same year by Mohamed Soltan's nonprofit Freedom Initiative stated that Egypt and Saudi Arabia have become "... more innovative and emboldened" in carrying out acts of transnational repression.[30]
In 2023, the Index on Censorship has referred to the Chinese government's attempts to censor artist Badiucao's overseas exhibitions as an example of transnational repression.[31]
In 2023, the US Sikh Coalition wrote to the federal government to warn about Indian transnational repression and rising Hindu nationalist threats in the US in the aftermath of the killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar.[32]