Digital surveillance, abductions or even killings: Repressive states increasingly target dissidents and journalists outside their national borders. European countries are not immune. What can we as the EU do? This is what we discussed at an Online Event together with victims of transnational repression and representatives from Human Rights Watch, Freedom House and Citizen Lab, as well as from the University of Venice. 

In the European Parliament, we have repeatedly drawn attention to the topic – e.g. in my report on the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders. Some dramatic examples of attacks are the stabbing of a journalist working for Iran International Journalist in London or the abduction of a Belarussian blogger by forcing the airplane he was travelling in to land in Minsk. It is now up to the European Commission and the European External Action Service to act and to develop a strategy on how to deal with this issue on EU level – see also my written question to the Commission.