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

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.

[...]

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.

[...]

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.

[...]