Foreign countries are helping autocracies repress exiled dissidents in return for economic gain

Governments, even democratic ones, are willing to aid autocracies in silencing exiled dissidents if the host nation thinks it’s in its economic interest.

That is what we found when looking into cases of transnational repression – the act of governments reaching across their national border to repress diasporas and exiles – from 2014 to 2020.

Since 2014, international watchdog Freedom House recorded 1,034 cases of governments reaching across borders to illegally deport, abduct, intimidate or assassinate their citizens.

The most frequent offenders were autocratic countries such as China (213 cases), Turkey (111), Egypt (42), Tajikistan (38), Russia (32) and Uzbekistan (29).

These governments have extended their reach into over 100 foreign countries to silence critics abroad. While autocracies sometimes act alone or collaborate with nongovernment actors, the most common form of transnational repression involves the governments of countries to which targeted people have fled. This includes democracies working closely with autocratic regimes to arrest, detain and deport people who face the risk of persecution and repression in the home country.

Our analysis of Freedom House data found that cooperation in transnational repression is most common among trade partners and when foreign countries wish to maintain or improve their economic relationship with autocratic governments.

Meanwhile, autocratic countries were most successful in securing cooperation among foreign countries with a weak rule of law.

For example, Turkey has successfully secured cooperation from multiple countries with a weak rule of law, such as Lebanon, in its efforts to silence Turkish journalists and overseas citizens linked to the opposition Gülen movement. Meanwhile, China has used its economic leverage to compel foreign governments to cooperate, with Cambodia deporting 20 Uyghur asylum-seekers to China after signing 14 trade deals with the country. Similarly, Thailand forcibly returned numerous dissident journalists to China, its largest trade partner.

Our analysis looked specifically at countries hosting refugees and asylum-seekers, since having diaspora populations is necessary for transnational repression to occur. For example, we included Poland, which hosts many Russian refugees, but excluded Belize, which has none.

Using Freedom House’s database, we tracked 608 cases of direct government cooperation in transnational repression. We focused specifically on detentions, renditions without legal representation, and unlawful deportations, but we excluded cases such as assassinations where host countries weren’t directly involved.

Then, using statistical models, we analyzed IMF data on annual trade flows and World Bank assessments of a country’s rule of law.

We found strong quantitative evidence that international cooperation on transnational repression relies on a country’s economic ties to the origin country and the quality of the country’s rule of law.

Why it matters

Our findings suggest that many countries are willing to sacrifice the civil liberties of foreign dissidents for economic opportunities with authoritarian governments. Autocracies also appear to be strategically targeting vulnerable states with weak rule of law institutions, such as the police, courts or immigration authorities.

Foreign countries that are less concerned about the consequences of breaking the rule of law are easier to co-opt and coerce, especially when they’re more financially dependent on the autocratic partner.

This provides autocracies with both the opportunity to repress and the leverage to elicit cooperation in violation of the “non-refoulement” rule – which, under international law, protects migrants from being returned to a country where they are at risk of torture.

What still isn’t known

It is difficult to know the full scale of transnational repression. Data measuring transnational repression is able to capture only the “tip of the iceberg,” as Freedom House has put it.

Many instances likely go unobserved due to the secret nature of human rights violations and governmental attempts to cover up, censor and deny abuses. We also know less about what causes autocracies to carry out transnational repression through collaborations with nonstate actors – including political parties, educational and religious groups, businesses and criminal gangs – rather than governments.

More research is needed to establish what prompts autocracies to engage in different types of tactics, from nonphysical instances of transnational repression – harassment, intimidation and threats – to physical forms, such as detention, abduction and physical violence.

The decision to engage in one tactic over another may be driven by different strategic benefits and costs.

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