Transnational Repression, or TNR, refers to acts or threats against individuals, groups and communities across territorial borders carried out by governments or their proxies, which violate human rights and/or intimidate, control, coerce, or silence dissent.
In the UK, repressive actors, including powerful and hostile states, have a growing number of tools to surveil, threaten and harass, violating fundamental rights guaranteed under international and domestic laws. Political dissidents, exiled journalists and human rights defenders have traditionally been the main targets of TNR, but today a broader array of groups and individuals also find themselves subject to transnational human rights violations here in the UK.
Source – The body behind the threat or act of TNR. This can include state actors, proxies or other third parties connected directly or indirectly to a foreign state. TNR can also be facilitated by other actors in the target country such as lawyers, public affairs firms, private investigators and others.
Tactics – There is an expanding list of documented TNR tactics both online and offline. This includes but is not limited to digital surveillance, harassment and smear campaigns, attempts to access personal information or data, physical attacks, killings and attempts to physically render targets.
Target individual/group – The person or group being targeted by the act or threat of TNR. While the motivation for each target may differ, the goal is the same – to shield the source from opposition or scrutiny, while also exerting control over the behaviour, thought, or identity of the wider population.
Cross-border nature of the act/threat – TNR is deployed by the source when the target is beyond their territorial reach and so cannot be targeted through conventional state means, for example domestic law enforcement agencies or agents. Often, the target may be in a country with an established diaspora or exile community and strong democratic protections in place.
Who is targeted with TNR?
In short anyone who criticises, opposes, or challenges powerful states willing to reach across state borders to stifle these protected acts. The Working Group has documented acts or threats directed at journalists, academics, pro-democracy campaigners, protesters, NGO workers, artists and members of marginalised communities and diaspora or exile communities who continue to play a role in the country they have left, to name a few. As TNR tactics evolve and more states turn to it as a tactic to control the international perceptions of the state or government, this list of targets is sure to increase.
TNR tactics have been deployed against members of marginalised communities or against communities with a specific protected characteristic, such as religion or ethnicity. Other characteristics, such as gender or sexual orientation, have also been used by TNR perpetrators to target individuals or increase the impact of cross-border harm.
Here are some examples of TNR targets in the UK:
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Diaspora or exile communities
TNR acts or threats can be deployed against communities at large, if they are perceived as a threat to the perpetrator state. This can stem from calls for greater autonomy or equality within the law, or in response to disproportionate, discriminatory or targeted state actions against members of the community that are further deployed against the community as a whole. This can include the Uyghur or Tibetan communities in the UK, as well as exile members of opposition movements from Rwanda, Russia or Belarus, to name a few.
Activists
Political activists and dissidents from places like China, Tibet, Iran, Rwanda and the Gulf face surveillance, cyber-attacks, intimidation and threats to family members. The Hong Kong Government has targeted a number of advocates for civil liberties, including British nationals, and issued arrest warrants and HK$1 million bounties for 19 exiled activists, of whom ten currently reside in the UK.
Journalists
Journalists reporting on corruption and repression in countries such as Malaysia, Rwanda and Russia have been subject to coordinated online harassment campaigns, abusive lawsuits that threaten them with bankruptcy and expose them to serious psychological and professional pressure, and in some cases outright violence. Hundreds of Iranian journalists in the UK have been subject to a long-running campaign of TNR which has included assassination plots and a stabbing in a London residential street. Journalists exposed to TNR report self-censoring, psychological distress, hypervigilance, disruption to family life and isolation.
Lawyers
Lawyers who represent dissidents or journalists have also been the target of TNR. UK lawyers acting for publisher Jimmy Lai, a British citizen arbitrarily jailed in Hong Kong, have faced coordinated online threats and cyber-attacks. The chilling effect of targeting lawyers could limit access to legal representation for other victims of TNR.
Academics and students
Many students and academics studying authoritarian regimes report feeling a need to self-censor in the classroom. UK-based academics have been subject to legal threats, threats to their funding, targeted sanctions, and UK PhD students have been arrested in the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia during fieldwork or family visits. A recent survey of 1500 UK social scientists found 67% considered academic freedom to be under threat, with one in five reporting having self-censored when teaching about autocratic countries.
Artists
Artists forced to flee due to the political nature of their work are susceptible to being denied access to UK venues, online harassment or hacking attempts due to their dependence on online platforms and social media to advertise their work.
Who are behind acts or threats of TNR?
For a long time, only authoritarian states would deploy these tactics to threaten, intimidate, control or access its critics or members of exile communities. With insufficiently independent courts, police, military and intelligence agencies, as well as weak rule of law protections, little prevented them from violating the territory of other states.
However, as democratic norms have eroded, coupled with rapidly evolving technologies that lower the cost of such interventions and help obscure the role of states or their proxies, we are documenting a far broader range of countries, including those with democratic policies in place, if only on paper, to have used TNR tactics.
Countries that have been documented using TNR tactics include Iran, Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, China, Hong Kong, Eritrea, Rwanda, Pakistan and India. This is an illustrative list and is by no means exhaustive.
While some examples involve explicit involvement of states, whether through their military or intelligence agencies, diplomatic staff in third countries, or other state bodies, TNR can also be deployed through unknown proxies. This can include political party supporters, members of the international community or paid for operatives. It can also be carried out through professional bodies in the UK, such as law firms, PR companies or private investigators. This can further cloak the state’s involvement, making it harder for targets and law enforcement agencies to determine the architect of the threats and respond in a robust and meaningful manner.
What tactics are used in TNR?
The toolkit available to TNR perpetrator states evolves and expands as technologies do.
While traditional techniques, such as physical surveillance and stalking, overt harassment, intimidation, violence and murder endure, modern TNR tactics often make use of rapidly developing technology, such as digital surveillance, online harassment, unlawful access to sensitive data, coordinated online attacks and remote coercion. Online TNR directed at women is often gendered or sexualised in nature, as are other proactive campaigns to damage the reputation of women.
A tactic the Working Group is increasingly documenting can be called “coercion by proxy”. This occurs where a perpetrator may not be able to access a UK resident and so instead attempts to intimidate or threaten other people, usually family members or colleagues, still located inside the perpetrator state. This can also include the coercion of family members based overseas, using tactics such as arrest and detention, travel bans, economic pressure and legal intimidation.
TNR tactics also involve regime agents infiltrating professions such as journalism and academia, or infiltrating sports and arts institutions, to exert psychological pressure on activists and intimidate communities, leading to self-censorship and a decline in public discourse or trust in these professions.