2.3K
Downloads
59
Episodes
Where is democracy heading? Is our freedom in danger? Inspired by the global COVID-19 lockdown, the #Forum2000online Chats offer interviews with politicians, experts, human rights defenders, journalists and diplomats – relevant and interesting people from the Forum 2000 network - discussing the most significant current developments and looking at how they impact the future of democracy and freedom. Governments tend to accumulate power in times of crisis - and we need to make sure they renounce it, once normalcy returns!
Episodes
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
In this week’s #Forum2000online Chat, Yana Gorokhovskaia, senior research analyst at Freedom House and a coauthor of “Defending Democracy in Exile”, joined Hasler Iglesias, Venezuelan democracy activist and member of the National Committee of Voluntad Popular, to talk about the findings of the report on transnational repression published last June.
According to Yana Gorokhovskaia, you will learn that:
- Transnational repression is a set of wide universe of tactics that governments use to reach across borders in order to silence dissent. It can take the form of physical tactics (assassinations, detentions, assaults, kidnappings, etc.) or non- physical or indirect tactics (pressure on family members, harassment online, etc.). Authoritarian regimes need to silence those who would speak out against them, not only inside their own borders but increasingly outside of their borders.
- To silence dissent is effective in a lot of cases, especially when it comes to people's family members.
- Potential targets do not travel or only travel to a few places in the world because they are worried about being kidnapped.
- The people who are being targeted do not have access to any special government, military or scientific information. They are being targeted not because it would give some kind of advantage to the targeting state in the classic kind of cold war espionage situation. They are being targeted because they are speaking out for fundamental human rights.
- There are people who continue their activism in spite of being targeted. There are mitigation measures that involve digital hygiene (not sharing location or information about immediate family, being careful with devices). Some companies offer technological solutions to people who need protection.
- Fighting transnational repression requires mitigating harassment and actions against dissidents and preventing or deterring authoritarian states from applying their tactics. Sanctions, visa bans, and looking at diplomatic staff that is stationed in a country to make sure that they are not perpetrating transnational repression are useful measures. Another strong signal is limiting security and financial assistance to governments that engage in transnational repression.
- Sometimes democratic governments reject people who are seeking asylum. This is a practice that puts them in danger because potential targets are less safe in non-democratic countries.
- In a globalized world, what happens within authoritarian states in their own territories is not limited to just that territory. It extends far beyond.
- Transnational repression endangers the quality of our freedoms and rights and also threatens our institutions and national security. This is an issue for all of us, whether or not we are living in exile and whether or not we ourselves come from an authoritarian state.
For more information about our activities follow our web and social media:
Web: https://www.forum2000.cz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forum.2000
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Forum_2000
Comments (0)
To leave or reply to comments, please download free Podbean or
No Comments
To leave or reply to comments,
please download free Podbean App.