An estate agent in North London and a restaurant in Glasgow. Two ordinary sites that in 2022 were discovered to be playing host to an illicit secondary function: the ‘secret Chinese police station’.
These were exposed in a report published by the human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders which found 102 such stations in action across Europe.
While these centres often offered administrative functions such as renewing Chinese driving licences, they were also found to be routinely practicing harassment and intimidation of Chinese nationals living abroad – constituting what is formally known as ‘transnational repression’.
What is transnational repression?
The United Nation’s human rights office (OHCHR) defines transnational repression as ‘acts conducted or directed by a State, or its proxy, to deter, silence or punish dissent, criticism or human rights advocacy towards it, expressed from outside its territory’.
Smear campaigns, blackmail and death threats
One of the most frequently used tactics is to threaten the families of the individual who still live in the home country, as a means of blackmail.
In other cases, we see the use of force, such as in the case of Trinh Xuan Thanh. In July 2017, he was meeting his partner in a Berlin park when they were kidnapped by Vietnamese secret service and forcibly returned to Vietnam to face trial. In 2023 the Berlin high court sentenced one of the perpetrators to five years in prison, after he pleaded guilty to ‘working for Vietnam intelligence agency’ and to ‘participating in the kidnapping’.
Transnational repression can also take the form of coordinated online smear campaigns, incitement to violence, and death threats – an issue we see repeatedly, for example, against those advocating on violations in Eritrea. One of CSW’s own board members, Helene Berhane, has experienced this herself. Helen is an Eritrean gospel singer, human rights advocate and former prisoner of conscience.
Feeble response
A foreign state coercing individuals in a foreign country is, of course, illegal under international law, as it violates territorial integrity.
What is surprising is how feeble the state’s response can be – both diplomatically and in terms of how seriously the cases are sometimes taken by domestic enforcement agencies, such as the police.
One victim based in an EU country has told CSW that he experiences incidents of harassment at his home every second day on average, and despite having informed law enforcement, has received next to zero response or support.
Perhaps, sometimes, this weakness comes in part from a kind of nationalistic insouciance, given that the victims are rarely nationals of the country in question.
Perhaps it comes about partly also from diplomatic miscalculations; the prioritisation of other interests such as economic ties, and for that reason a reluctance to ‘rock the boat’ by being too vocal.
In our view, neither of these reasonings are excusable.
What is our response?
CSW works to ensure that addressing transnational repression is firmly on the international agenda.
Ahead of the EU-China Summit, for example, we co-authored a letter to the Presidents of the EU, calling for the inclusion of transnational repression as a topic in their discussions.
Together with our partner Human Rights Concern Eritrea, we also submitted a report on violations targeting the Eritrean diaspora in the UK to the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.
You can support a stronger response to transnational repression by raising your voice when it takes place, looking out for related campaigns. And as always, please keep in your prayers the victims, intelligence services, other law enforcement agencies, and all decision makers involved in responding to incidents.