Authoritarian regimes are increasingly weaponising financial and cybersecurity rules against dissidents in Europe
The European Parliament adopted its first-ever comprehensive report on Tuesday on how authoritarian regimes target critics, activists and dissidents after they have moved abroad.
The report brings attention to an overlooked problem known as “transnational repression”. Countries such as Russia, Iran, and China, for example, target dissidents not only within their own borders, but also across Europe, from spying to physical violence.
MEPs now want the EU to create a common system to record and report these incidents across the bloc, so authorities can better understand how widespread the problem is.
One particularly insidious area is financial transnational repression, identified in a recent study commissioned by the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee as “a growing area of concern”.
