According to Human Rights Watch, “cross-border repression” is being used against journalists, political opponents and activists.

Governments around the world are “reaching beyond their borders” to attack their citizens abroad and silence dissent, says a new report from an international human rights group.

In a report released Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted a growing trend of “cross-border repression,” with countries taking cross-border action against journalists, political opponents, human rights defenders, civil society activists and others, which is having a “chilling effect.” on freedom of expression and association.

The 46-page report, titled “We Will Find You: A Global Look at How Governments Repress Nationals Abroad,” describes 75 cases from governments in more than two dozen countries – including Russia, Iran, China, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Thailand and Saudi Arabia and Turkey – have committed “human rights violations … to silence or deter dissent” over the past 15 years.

Methods include killings as well as “abductions, unlawful deportations, abuse of consular services, targeted and collective punishment of relatives, and digital attacks” that spread fear, not only among victims, but also among their friends and family members who are also victims can be.

“Governments, the United Nations and other international organizations should recognize cross-border repression as a concrete threat to human rights,” said Bruno Stagno, chief advocacy officer of the New York-based group.

Abuses

Examples cited in the HRW report include the 2018 murder of a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Riyadh Consulate in Istanbul, Türkiye.

In September 2021, Revocat Karemangingo, a former lieutenant in the Rwandan army who had refugee status in Mozambique, was targeted by the government in Kigali. His death was a chilling warning for the refugee community. Embassy officials reportedly threatened they would “end up dead like Karemangingo.”

Countries had also attacked family members to silence dissidents.

The report described how police in Chechnya kidnapped the mother of Ibragim Yangulbaev, who runs an anti-government Telegram channel abroad, and sentenced her to five and a half years in prison.

Deportation through kidnapping or the use of legal methods such as extradition or deportation also occurred frequently.

HRW understands that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) kidnapped Ruhallah Zam, an Iranian journalist living in exile in France, during his visit to Iraq. He was executed in 2020 after a trial the group called “extremely unfair.”

Some governments have abused Interpol’s red notices, which raise global alerts and allow law enforcement to detain a person before possible extradition.

In one case it was a Bahraini dissident Ahmed Jaafar Mohammed Ali HRW said he fled to Serbia after Bahraini authorities tortured him. But after Bahrain sentenced him to life in prison following “unfair” trials and subsequently issued a red notice against him, he was arrested and illegally extradited in January 2022, the report said.

Some countries have taken steps to counter “cross-border repression,” including Australia and the United States.

Australia passed a law in 2018 in response to allegations that the Chinese government had intimidated members of the diaspora. Police have launched a program to advise Australians on what to do if they believe foreign governments are targeting them.

The United States has trained employees of its Federal Bureau of Investigation to identify cases of “transnational repression” and has passed laws to counter the use of Interpol for political purposes.