This event was held virtually as a Zoom webinar and streamed via YouTube Live.
Freedom House presents the findings of its brand-new report Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach: The Global Scale and Scope of Transnational Repression. The report is the first global study of transnational repression, or the targeting of exiles and diasporas by their origin states. This new report goes beyond familiar high-profile cases like the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to explain the logic and the prevalence of transnational repression around the world: who is doing what to whom how. Co-authors Nate Schenkkan and Isabel Linzer will present the report’s findings, followed by a Q&A moderated by Harriman Institute director Alexander Cooley.
Click here to access the report on the Freedom House website.
Read Schenkkan’s piece on the topic, “The Long Arm of the Authoritarian State,” in the Washington Post (Feb. 3, 2021).
Nate Schenkkan is the Director for Research Strategy at Freedom House. He previously served as the Director for Special Research at Freedom House, overseeing Freedom House’s research portfolio outside of its annual reports. He also previously served as the Project Director for Nations in Transit, Freedom House’s annual survey of democratic governance from Central Europe to Eurasia, and as Senior Program Officer for Freedom House’s Eurasia programs, covering Central Asia and Turkey. He was the lead researcher and co-author of two Freedom House special reports, The Struggle for Turkey’s Internet and Democracy in Crisis: Corruption, Media and Power in Turkey. He is the co-author of Freedom House’s special report on transnational repression, Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach. Prior to joining Freedom House in 2012, he worked as a journalist in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. He has been published in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Eurasianet, World Politics Review, and Russian Analytical Digest. Read his opinion piece about transnational repression in the Washington Post (Feb. 3, 2021).
Isabel Linzer is a Research Analyst for Technology and Democracy at Freedom House, and leads Election Watch for the Digital Age, which tracks the interplay of elections, internet platforms, and human rights around the world. She has regional expertise in sub-Saharan Africa and coordinated research on the region for the organization’s flagship report on political rights and civil liberties, Freedom in the World, and its annual study of internet freedom, Freedom on the Net. Isabel is the co-author of Freedom House’s special report on transnational repression, Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach. Her writing has been published in The Washington Post, African Arguments, and Just Security. Before joining Freedom House, Isabel worked at the National Democratic Institute, supporting the organization’s international election observation mission to Liberia’s 2017 presidential election.
