Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati survived an assassination attempt outside his home in Wimbledon, south London, in late March. Eighteen months earlier, the London-based independent television channel Iran International, for which Zeraati worked, had temporarily relocated to Washington DC over threats that they believe come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Both incidents are examples of how it seems that a government can target an individual or organization based outside their borders, with terrifying results.

According to the latest research from the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenberg, 71% of the world’s population lived in autocracies in 2023 – ten years ago it was 48%. But what’s also new is that autocracies – as well as some other nations – are increasingly reaching across their borders to target people living abroad, enforcing the idea that they can reach their critics wherever they live.

This kind of state action, taken outside national borders, is known as transnational repression, and is becoming more widespread. The Chinese government is seen as the biggest perpetrator, sometimes using violence to close down criticism or protests against its regime, held in other countries.

Countries reaching across borders

More than 20% of the world’s governments are believed to have taken this kind of action outside their borders in the past ten years. These included assassinations, abductions, assaults, detentions and unlawful deportations, according to the NGO Freedom House. These are aimed at forcibly silencing exiled political activists, journalists, former regime insiders and members of ethnic or religious minorities. In 2023, 125 such incidents were committed by 25 countries.

While the majority of countries........

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