Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: Transnational repression against individuals who live outside their countries of origin, prominent or vocal anti-regime figures, and persons who provide aid and support to dissidents— is a human rights violation that seeks to stifle dissent and enhance control over exile, activist, emigrant, and diaspora communities; and can take the form of— extrajudicial killings; physical assaults and intimidation; unlawful detentions; unlawful renditions; unlawful deportations; unexplained or enforced disappearances; physical or online surveillance or stalking; unwarranted passport cancellation or control over other identification documents;
INTERPOL abuse; intimidation by diplomatic personnel, government officials, or proxies; unlawful asset freezes; digital threats, such as cyberattacks, targeted surveillance and spyware, online harassment, and intimidation; coercion by proxy, such as harassment of, or threats or harm to, family and associates of such private individuals who remain in the country of origin; and slander and libel to discredit individuals. Governments perpetrating transnational repression often pressure host countries, especially— through threats to condition foreign assistance or other pressure campaigns on lawmakers in host countries, such as threats— to withdraw foreign students from their universities; and to induce them to enact policies that repress emigrant and diaspora communities; and by offering financial and material assistance to host countries to harass and intimidate emigrant and diaspora communities.
Transnational repression is a threat to individuals, democratic institutions, the exercise of rights and freedoms, and national security and sovereignty. Authoritarian governments increasingly rely on transnational repression as their consolidation of control at home pushes dissidents abroad. The spread of digital technologies provides new tools for censoring, surveilling, and targeting individuals deemed to be threats across international borders, especially dissidents pushed abroad who themselves rely on communications technology to amplify their messages, which can often lead to physical attacks and coercion by proxy.
Many acts of transnational repression are undertaken through cooperation of, or cooperation with, authorities in the host country, most notably by taking advantage of other States’ concerns about terrorism to accuse the targeted individual of terrorism or extremism. Authoritarian actors routinely attempt to deter and silence the voices of dissident and exile communities at international fora, as documented by the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights in the Secretary-General’s annual report on reprisals to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The principle of non-refoulement, which is explicitly included in the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, done at New York December 10, 1984— forms an essential protection under international law; and prohibits countries from expelling or returning an individual to another country where the individual’s life or freedom would be threatened on account of the individual’s race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, or due to substantial grounds for believing that the individual would be at risk of torture.