"Governments perpetrated 160 total incidents of physical transnational repression across 34 countries in 2024, including assassinations, abductions, assaults, detentions, and unlawful deportations" - Freedom House
This statement was originally published on freedomhouse.org on 6 February 2025.
Freedom House recorded more than 1,200 incidents of physical transnational repression during the last decade
In 2024, 23 governments reached across borders to silence exiled political activists, journalists, former regime insiders, and members of ethnic or religious minorities, according to new data released today by Freedom House.
Transnational repression – a set of physical and digital tactics used by governments to stifle dissent among political exiles or diaspora communities in other countries – poses a distinct threat to global freedom. Governments perpetrated 160 total incidents of physical transnational repression across 34 countries in 2024, including assassinations, abductions, assaults, detentions, and unlawful deportations. The governments of Uganda, Cambodia, Russia, Iran, and China were the top perpetrators of transnational repression in 2024.
“Regimes around the world are working to silence their critics even after they have sought refuge abroad,” said Freedom House interim Copresident Annie Boyajian. “This is a growing problem that is critical to address. Democracies have much more to do to protect these communities under threat, secure their sovereignty, and defend their values. The good news is it can be done.”
Between 2014 and 2024, Freedom House has recorded a total of 1,219 direct, physical incidents of transnational repression committed by 48 governments who have reached across the borders of 103 countries that are hosting exiled dissidents and diaspora communities. The governments of China, Turkey, and Tajikistan rank as the most prolific perpetrators of transnational repression overall since 2014.
Key Findings:
- Seventy-three incidents from 2024 were mass events involving the simultaneous targeting of three or more people. The largest such incident occurred in Kenya, where 36 Ugandan activists were abducted and returned to Uganda, and charged with “receiving terrorist training” for participating in a civil society workshop. Two other mass incidents took place in Thailand. In February, three Cambodian activists were detained for planning protests in advance of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet’s first visit to Thailand. In a separate incident in November, six Cambodian activists were deported from Thailand and now face charges of treason in Cambodia for posting comments critical of the country’s authorities on Facebook. Authorities in Turkey and Russia also targeted groups of people with renditions and attempted unlawful deportations.
- The Chinese Communist Party remains the world’s leading perpetrator of transnational repression and is responsible for 272 recorded physical incidents since 2014. In March, individuals working for the Ministry of State Security tried to kidnap a Chinese dissident and force him onto an international flight at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport.
- The government of Tajikistan is now among the most aggressive in pursuing dissidents abroad and was responsible for 9 incidents in 2024, and 92 since 2014. In November 2024, German authorities deported Dilmurod Ergashev, an opposition activist who participated in several peaceful protests against the Tajikistani government and has sought asylum in Germany since 2011. He was taken into custody upon landing in Dushanbe and remains in prison. In similar cases, people have been sentenced to decades in prison after being returned to Tajikistan.
“Transnational repression continues to threaten democracy, freedom, and security globally,” said Yana Gorokhovskaia, research director for strategy and design at Freedom House. “With a quarter of the world’s governments attempting to silence dissent across borders, democratic governments and civil society must take more concrete actions to defend and protect those facing this growing threat.”
Click here to read Freedom House’s policy recommendations on transnational repression.
Freedom House’s transnational repression database catalogs and tracks incidents dating back to 2014. While acts of transnational repression are often carried out online using tactics such as digital intimidation, the database focuses on direct, physical incidents, including assassinations, assaults, detentions, and unlawful deportations. These reported incidents likely represent only a small fraction of the total number of cases that occur.
This data is the latest in Freedom House’s ongoing effort to document cases of transnational repression around the world. In 2021, Freedom House released the first comprehensive global survey of transnational repression, Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach, and in subsequent years released the follow-up reports Defending Democracy in Exile: Policy Responses to Transnational Repression and Still Not Safe: Transnational Repression in 2022. A Light That Cannot Be Extinguished: Exiled Journalism and Transnational Repression was released in December 2023, while Addressing Transnational Repression on Campuses in the United States was released in January 2024.
