Forty-five years ago, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was killed in London with a poison-tipped umbrella as he made his way home from work. The horrifying case transfixed the British public.
So transnational repression is not new, including on British shores. But unless its target is unusually high-profile, or it uses startling tactics such as those employed by Markov’s killers – or in the attempt to assassinate Sergei Skripal – much of it passes with minimal attention.
For political opponents, journalists, civil society activists and others, fleeing their homeland may offer only limited protection, even if they win recognition as refugees. The veteran journalist Can Dündar survived an assassination attempt in Turkey and escaped to Berlin in 2016, but has faced threats even there: “I have to be careful about the coffee I drink, where I live,” he told the Guardian this week.
Last month, Pouria Zeraati, of the television channel Iran International, was stabbed outside his London home. Colleagues had previously been warned of credible threats to their lives. The suspicion is that the regime in Tehran hired proxies to assault its critics abroad. As protests swept the nation in October 2022, Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, warned international media to “watch out, because we’re coming for you”.
In We Will Find You, a report released earlier this year, Human Rights Watch noted: “Transnational repression is not new, but it is a phenomenon that has often been downplayed or ignored and warrants a call to action.” The US-based not-for-profit organisation Freedom House argues that the problem is actually spreading. While countries including Russia have long been associated with such activities, others have more recently been linked to high-profile killings and more general harassment.
The White House last week described reports that the Indian intelligence service was responsible for two assassination plots in the US and Canada as “a serious matter”. On Friday, Canadian police charged three men with the murder of the prominent Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia. Justin Trudeau said last year that “credible allegations” potentially linked India to his killing. Hong Kong activists living in the UK, and students from elsewhere in China, have both complained of surveillance and harassment on British soil. In some cases, their families back home have been challenged about their activities abroad. Last year, Hong Kong placed bounties on the heads of several exiles, including three now living in the UK.
Regimes are finding new ways to terrorise those who have left. In 2021, Belarusian authorities used a fake bomb threat to force a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius to land in Minsk – then detained the opposition blogger Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega. Three years later, many people have only a blurry memory of the case. But for Belarusian dissidents – and those who have fled other authoritarian states – it looms large. Such actions are not only a threat to the lives and freedoms of the individual activists involved. They also have a chilling effect, deterring others from speaking out.
Human Rights Watch has called for a new UN rapporteur to focus on the issue. This would be a step forward in understanding and addressing this problem. Faced with increasingly brazen tactics, other countries must also be bold in calling out transnational repression and holding governments to account for it.
