01/31/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 01/30/2024 23:26
While Chinese authorities pose the single greatest threat, the governments of Egypt, India, Rwanda, and Saudi Arabia have also targeted international students and faculty with online harassment, digital surveillance, hacking and spyware, threats, and the intimidation of family members residing in their homelands. Transnational repression affects the physical safety, mental well-being, and academic freedom of over one million international students at American institutions of higher education.
"Young people who come to the United States to take advantage of its higher education system are being followed and harassed by some of the worst perpetrators of human rights violations," said Michael J. Abramowitz, president of Freedom House. "Many colleges and universities lack the tools to protect them from ongoing threats from authoritarian regimes. Administrators need to better understand what transnational repression looks like and develop strategies to protect members of the campus community."
The report is based on interviews with international students, scholars, and administrators in the United States about their experiences. It builds on previous analysisby Freedom House that found 38 governments perpetrated 854 incidents of physical, direct transnational repression in 91 countries between 2014 and 2022. These incidents include assassinations, assaults, detentions, and unlawful deportations, but likely represent only a small fraction of the total number of cases that occur.
"Campus administrators can take steps to safeguard their students and faculty," said Yana Gorokhovskaia, the report's coauthor and research director for strategy and design at Freedom House. "Creating a way to report incidents, publicly denouncing attempts to target students, and raising awareness among staff will go a long way toward preventing and mitigating the threats posed by transnational repression on campuses."
The report provides recommendations that school administrations can utilize to respond toincidents of transnational repression.Click hereto read the full report and policy recommendations.
Addressing Transnational Repression on Campuses in the United Statesis the latest in Freedom House's ongoing effort to document cases of transnational repression around the world. In 2021, Freedom House released the first comprehensive global survey of transnational repression, Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach, and in subsequent years released the follow-up reports Defending Democracy in Exile: Policy Responses to Transnational Repressionand Still Not Safe: Transnational Repression in 2022, with A Light That Cannot Be Extinguished: Exiled Journalism and Transnational Repressionreleased most recently in December 2023.To schedule an interview with Freedom House experts, please contact Maryam Iftikhar at [email protected].
Freedom House is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to create a world where all are free. We inform the world about threats to freedom, mobilize global action, and support democracy's defenders.