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The TRP hosted "State Responses to Transnational Repression" on February 5th, with Francesca Lessa, Marcus Michaelsen, Kirsten Roberts Lyer, and Puneet Kaur as featured panelists. Francesca Lessa is Associate Professor in International Relations of the Americas at University College London (UCL). She is also the Coordinator and Principal Researcher of the Plancondor.org project at UCL, and the Honorary President of the Observatorio Luz Ibarburu in Uruguay. Her book The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America (Yale University Press, 2022) won the 2023 Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America (Duke University) and the 2024 Premio Iberoamericano Book Award (Latin American Studies Association). She also co-authored the illustrated book Plan Cóndor: Viejos secretos y nuevos hallazgos (with Sebastián Santana Camargo, Reservoir Books, 2025, 2nd edition).
Marcus Michaelsen, PhD, is a researcher studying digital technologies, human rights activism and authoritarian politics. He works as a Senior Researcher at the Citizen Lab based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, where he focuses on digital transnational repression. Previously he was a Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS) research group of Vrije Universiteit Brussel and a Senior Information Controls Fellow with the Open Technology Fund, a non-profit organisation supporting global internet freedom. From 2014 until 2018, Dr. Michaelsen was a post-doctoral researcher in the project Authoritarianism in a Global Age in the Political Science Department of the University of Amsterdam. His work on transnational repression has been published in Democratization, Globalizations, the European Journal of International Security, and Surveillance & Society, among others. Kirsten Roberts Lyer is Chair of the Human Rights Program and Associate Professor in the Department of Legal Studies at Central European University in Vienna. Her research examines independent state-based human rights bodies, including national human rights institutions (NHRIs), and their role in protecting rights and strengthening accountability. She is the co-author of National Human Rights Institutions (Oxford University Press, 2021) and has published on institutional independence and human rights protection. She serves on the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) Scientific Committee (2023–2028) and is a Member of the Council of Europe Working Group on the Democratic Mission of Higher Education. Before joining CEU, she spent 15 years in human rights practice, including as Director at the Irish Human Rights Commission (Ireland's NHRI) and as a legal officer at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She regularly advises international organizations on legislation and safeguards for independent human rights bodies, and strengthening parliamentary engagement with human rights. She is currently working on human rights based responses to transnational repression, having recently published Transnational Human Rights Violations: Addressing the Evolution of Globalized Repression through National Human Rights Institutions, in the Journal of Human Rights Practice with Andrew Chubb. Puneet Kaur is the Senior State Policy Manager at the Sikh Coalition, the nation's largest Sikh Civil Rights organization. She brings over eight years of experience in public policy and advocacy rooted in close partnership with underserved and diverse communities. In her role at the Sikh Coalition, she leads statewide efforts in California and beyond to advance civil-rights protections, hate-crime prevention, and inclusive public-education policy, while playing a central role in the Sikh Coalition’s broader work to confront transnational repression impacting Sikh and other diaspora communities. Her work has helped move California toward a first-of-its-kind framework to train law enforcement to recognize and respond to transnational repression, ensuring government systems are better equipped to protect targeted communities. Puneet’s approach to policy is grounded in coalition-building, community education, and translating lived experiences into durable, systemic change. The TRP hosted the second of its spring 2025 webinar series on May 27th, "Transnational Repression & Non-State Actors" with Rasha Abdul-Rahim, John Heathershaw, and Edward Lemon as featured panelists. This session included expert discussion on:
John Heathershaw is Professor of International Relations at the University of Exeter. His research addresses conflict, security, and development in authoritarian political environments, especially in Central Asia. He is co-author of Dictators Without Borders (Yale, 2017), The UK’s Kleptocracy Problem (Chatham House, 2021), Indulging Kleptocracy (Oxford, 2025) and principal investigator on several research projects on the transnational networks of postcommunist elites. In 2021/22, John was a senior fellow of the British Academy studying relations between these elites and British professional service providers. From 2015-2020, he led the Central Asian Political Exiles project which produced an original database of transnational repression by governments against their citizens overseas.
Edward Lemon is Research Assistant Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University in Washington DC. His research focuses on the global dynamics of authoritarianism, in particular transnational repression. He is co-author of the forthcoming book Backlash: China's Struggle for Influence in Central Asia (Hurst, 2025). His research on transnational repression has been published by Globalizations, Journal of Democracy, European Journal of International Security, Political Research Exchange and Diaspora. Rasha Abdul Rahim is a strategist, and independent expert on technology, human rights and social justice issues. She is also currently the Interim Executive Director of People vs Big Tech, a movement of over 140 organisations in Europe fighting to overturn the predatory business model of Big Tech corporations and change the internet for good. Before that, Rasha spent 15 years at Amnesty International in various roles, and was the Director of Amnesty Tech from 2020-2024, where she oversaw global research, campaigning, advocacy and policy development on various tech issues, including Big Tech accountability, unlawful targeted surveillance, establishing new programmes on AI and human rights and children’s digital rights. She also co-led the award-winning Pegasus Project in collaboration with Forbidden Stories, a groundbreaking global investigation which exposed the scale of abuse of Pegasus spyware. Before specialising in technology and human rights, she worked on arms control and played a central role in Amnesty International's campaign to secure the landmark Arms Trade Treaty. Rasha holds a Masters in Modern and Medieval Languages from Cambridge University, a Masters in International Studies and Diplomacy from SOAS and a law degree from BPP Law School. Are you an emerging researcher in the field of transnational repression? One resource the TRP seeks to provide is mentorship for younger scholars doing research on transnational repression. If you would like to present your work and receive feedback from scholars in the field, please fill out the interest form below and we can arrange for an interactive workshop with discussants. This is an opportunity to present your research and receive constructive feedback from experts. This unique experience allows participants to refine conceptual and methodological approaches, enhance presentation skills, and connect with the broader academic community in the field.
Please complete the form to register for the workshop. We will be back in touch after reviewing the submitted information. The TRP hosted the first of its spring 2025 webinar series on February 25th, "Introducing the Transnational Repression Project: A Discussion of Subconcepts & Data," with Rebecca Cordell and Dana Moss as featured panelists. This conversation covered a wide range of important and relevant topics, including:
Rebecca Cordell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on human rights and state repression. She is particularly interested in why countries cooperate in transnational repression, measuring human rights using machine learning and text analysis, and examining public opinion and human rights. Rebecca's research is published in International Interactions, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Human Rights, and Journal of Peace Research.
Dana Moss is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. Her research and teaching focus on power and resistance, including the transnational repression of diaspora and refugee communities by authoritarian regimes. Her award-winning book, The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism Against Authoritarian Regimes (Cambridge, 2022) explains the emergence and impacts of anti-regime diaspora mobilization during the 2011 uprising in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Her current research focuses on how members of the military resist participating in violence during wartime. |
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