According to the latest data released by the human rights and democracy think tank Freedom House on February 6, 2024 saw governments of 23 countries involved in transnational repression events, with the Chinese Communist regime remaining the primary culprit in transnational repression. Over the past decade, the Chinese Communist regime has consistently topped the global rankings in this record of human rights abuses.
The Freedom House press release mentioned that in 2024, 23 governments crossed international borders to suppress exiled political activists, journalists, former regime insiders, as well as members of ethnic or religious minority groups. These regimes employed a range of physical and digital tactics to silence dissenting voices within overseas political exiles or diaspora communities, posing a clear threat to global freedoms.
The statement noted that in 2024, these governments collectively committed 160 transnational repression events involving human rights violations in 34 countries, including assassinations, kidnappings, assaults, detentions, and illegal deportations.
The statement criticized the governments of China, Uganda, Cambodia, Russia, and Iran as the main perpetrators of transnational repression in 2024.
Over the span of a decade from 2014 to 2024, Freedom House documented a total of 1,219 direct cases of transnational repression carried out by 48 governments, crossing the borders of 103 countries hosting exiled dissidents and diaspora communities. The governments of China, Turkey, and Tajikistan were identified as the most prolific perpetrators of transnational repression overall since 2014.
The primary findings revealed in the statement showed that China leads the world as the primary perpetrator in transnational repression. Since 2014, the Chinese regime has been held accountable for 272 recorded cases of personal repression. In March 2024, individuals working for China’s Ministry of State Security attempted to abduct a Chinese dissident and forcibly placed him on an international flight to China at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
Yana Gorokhovskaia, Strategic and Research Director at Freedom House, stated, “Transnational repression continues to pose threats to global democracy, freedom, and security.”
Freedom House tracks and categorizes events since 2014 in their Transnational Repression Database. The database primarily focuses on direct personal events, including assassinations, assaults, detentions, and illegal deportations. Transnational repression tactics often involve digital intimidation methods conducted online. Freedom House noted that the reported events may only represent a small fraction of the total incidents that actually occurred.
In 2021, Freedom House released the first global investigation report on transnational repression titled “Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach,” followed by subsequent reports in the ensuing years.