“Transnational repression” is a little-known practice that refers to pressure exerted by a government, through illegal or violent means, to silence expat citizens of other nations, increasingly, those living in the West.
A recent report, based on the audio recording of a Pakistani state agent trying transnationally to repress a Pakistani expat living in Australia – written for Drop Site News by Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain – exposes the practice:
A government—or individuals working at the behest of a government to target its rivals —cracking down on the political activity of people who live outside its borders. The act goes beyond a typical human rights abuse because it not only violates the rights of its immediate target, but also challenges the sovereignty of the nation the victim calls home.
In short, transnational repression exists when a government, such as the Chinese Communist Party, tracks, intimidates and persecutes you from one country to another. The report continues:
When Saudi Arabia sent a hit squad to murder American journalist and resident Jamaal Khashoggi in Istanbul, the killing was seen not just as an act of aggression against the free press, but as a slap in the face of both Turkey and the United States….
‘Australians would be alarmed to learn of foreign governments using coercive measures against Australia citizens and their families,’ said Andrew Wilkie, a member of Australia’s House of Representatives, responding to Shabbir’s case.
The recording (which was translated into English and can be heard here) is of a call made to Salman Shabbir, an Australian citizen of Pakistani descent, who runs a small X account called Citizen Action, focused on promoting democratic reform in Pakistan. Among other things, he has helped collect and circulate letters and petitions concerning Pakistan’s abysmal human rights record and its rigged elections, and has called for outside investigations.
Prior to the call made to Shabbir, his brother had been abducted by half a dozen men dressed in black. Shabbir responded by posting about the abduction on his Citizen Action account. On the following day, he received a call from his brother’s number.
After briefly hearing his brother’s voice, another man yanked the phone and asked, “Where is your brother?”
“Now listen to me,” the man proceeded, “and don’t try to pull a trick or be clever. If you do, you will create problems for your brother.”
The man, who only towards the end of the call identified himself simply as “Hamza,” went on to warn Shabbir against interfering with Pakistani politics, especially seeing that he had relocated from Pakistan and now lives in Australia: “You should mind your own business… You should not be indulging in Pakistan’s affairs.”
Shabbir was then asked who runs the Citizen Action portal. When Shabbir replied that he did, “Hamza” ordered him to give him his username and password. When Shabbir objected, “Hamza” said, “If you don’t send it, we have your brother with us, and you will be responsible.” The call ended.
Later that day, the phone rang again, and Shabbir heard his brother’s voice: “Salman, brother, this bro has got me here and I am in a lot of trouble and I request you to please do as they say.”
When Shabbir asked what they wanted, his brother said, “You are speaking against the government of Pakistan—don’t do it, otherwise I would run into trouble.”
After asking him about his well-being and gathering that his brother had been tortured, Shabbir said, “Ok, I won’t speak against the government. All good?”
At this point, the brother addressed his abductor, “Sir, do you have another demand?”
“Hamza” went on to say that he no longer needed the username and password, but rather that Shabbir needed instantly to delete his more recent post saying his brother had been abducted, and instead say that it had all been a mistake. When Shabbir said he would do so only after he knew that his brother had been released and was home safe, his brother pled for him to comply without condition: “Salman, they will torture me!”
The phone was again seized from his brother, and “Hamza” returned: “Right now, I have abducted your brother, next time I will bring your whole family.”
Sounds of a beating are then heard.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yes, I heard,” Shabbir responds.
The beating and screams continue until Shabbir agrees to delete the tweet and cease criticizing Pakistan. His brother was released soon after.
Shabbir later learned that his brother had been taken to a nearby jail, held in a traditional cell, all of which confirmed that his brother’s abductors and torturers were state agents, most likely of the notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Discussing this incident with Drop Site News, Shabbir said:
They told me to be quiet so that there could be ‘stability’ in Pakistan, but it is their own actions that are causing instability. I told them that what they were doing was illegal, counterproductive, but they mocked me when I mentioned the law and forced me to listen to them torturing my brother on the phone.
As unsettling as such dispatches may be in the West, they are also unsettlingly common. The report lists several more examples of Pakistani expatriates being threatened, or their family members being threatened and attacked, if the expatriate does not cease casting a negative spotlight on Pakistan:
American citizens—even ones with celebrity status in Pakistan—have not been spared from this dragnet. Salman Ahmad, a Pakistan-American physician and well-known musician with the Pakistani rock band Junoon, said that he has faced violence targeting his family in Pakistan, including the abduction and torture of his brother-in-law last year. Ahmad is a supporter of imprisoned former prime minister Khan, and his family was targeted as a result of his activism. Like Shabbir, he also received demands to hand over his internet passwords and other personal information.
Ahmad said during an interview:
My family and I feel like hunted animals. The psychological torture is made worse by the physical threats to our lives and businesses. We’re taking on the ISI because we’re dead anyway.
In a separate incident, as Wajahat Saeed Khan, a veteran Pakistani journalist and permanent U.S. resident and his partner were preparing dinner in their NY apartment, an anonymous number called. Picking it up, Khan’s partner was greeted by the voice of an unfamiliar man who immediately began rattling off the names and addresses of her relatives living in Pakistan, where she was born. When the woman asked who the caller was, he replied,
We know who you are, and you know who we are. Maybe you should tell your gentleman caller [Khan] to relax, and to stop doing his work with so much anger.
These practices, according to the report, are not limited to beatings and threats:
Over the past several years, a number of Pakistani dissidents have died in murky circumstances abroad. Among them was Sajjid Hussain, a Pakistani journalist who had been granted asylum in Sweden and found dead in 2020, as well as Karima Baloch, a dissident human rights activist who died in Canada the same year. In 2022, a British man was found guilty in a murder-for-hire plot targeting Waqas Goraya, a Pakistani blogger living in exile in the Netherlands and vocal critic of the government. And last year, prominent Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif was murdered in Kenya after likely being tortured, a Kenyan court concluded.
While the above reports from Pakistan underscore the terrors involved with transnational repression, they are not limited to Pakistan. Many more high profile cases have taken place at the hands of Saudi Arabia—which assassinated dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in 2018—and of India, which assassinated Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh political dissident and separatist living in Canada last year.
During a US Congressional hearing on transnational repression held earlier this year in response to the assassination of Nijjar, John Sifton of Human Rights Watch underscored the chilling effect such foreign governments have on legitimate criticism and consequently reform:
Transnational repression leads to self-censorship. Even if some reporters and human rights defenders continue their work, others cannot afford to do so. As a result, intended research and reporting on a government’s human rights record does not happen.
The Drop Site report relates:
Despite the objections of some members of Congress over increasing repression and the rigging of elections this February, the U.S. has continued to embrace the military-backed Pakistani government.
The hug apparently includes a planned $101 million aid package and an IMF loan for Pakistani arms to Ukraine.
Drop Site continues:
A spokesperson for the State Department said they couldn’t comment publicly on individual cases involving private citizens or residents, but added, ‘the Department takes allegations of abuse or mistreatment of U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and international visitors by foreign entities very seriously. We coordinate closely with other federal, state, and local authorities to engage local communities on their concerns, and always encourage individuals with safety or security concerns to raise them with law enforcement.’