"1. Increasing attacks on independent media globally are forcing journalists to flee their home countries. Working from abroad, these reporters remain crucial sources of information about some of the world’s most authoritarian countries. But safety in exile is not guaranteed.
2. At least 26 govern
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ments, including those of Belarus, Cambodia, China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, have targeted journalists abroad with transnational repression, putting their safety and work in serious peril.
3. Transnational repression against journalists includes assault, detention, kidnapping, and unlawful deportation, as well as serious limitations on freedom of movement resulting from these threats. It also entails the intimidation of journalists’ family members, digital harassment, smear campaigns, doxing, and other attempts to prevent truthful reporting.
4. These attacks have a devastating impact on journalists’ well-being, as well as their ability to deliver independent reporting. Exiled reporters struggle to maintain the contacts they need to cover stories. They face death threats, online harassment, and aggressive rhetoric from officials in origin countries. Often in precarious economic situations, they must also shoulder high monetary costs to overcome censorship, protect their digital and physical security, and navigate difficult immigration bureaucracies.
5. Despite these challenges, exiled journalists have developed strategies to keep working. But they need legal, financial, and operational support from host governments, civil society, and media organizations in order to continue to expose human rights violations around the world." (Key findings)
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"Transnational repression is strategically employed by autocrats, enabled by underprepared host governments, and spreading rapidly around the world. This report aims to assess the strengths and weaknesses in the global understanding of and responses to transnational repression, so that governments,
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private companies, and civil society organizations can better equip themselves to defend human rights. Transnational repression should be recognized for what it is: a direct threat to fundamental freedoms, state sovereignty, and democracy, and a disturbing physical manifestation of global authoritarianism." (Page 2)
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