Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
Staikou Dimitra
“And what didn’t you do to bury me — but you forgot that I was a seed.”
— Dinos Christianopoulos
These haunting words by the Greek poet evoke the resilience of dissent. But in today’s geopolitical climate, they also echo the perilous cost of speech — especially for those who challenge authoritarianism from exile. For Pakistan’s critics abroad, the “seed” of truth is now being hunted, uprooted, and stamped out — not just within the country’s borders, but far beyond them.
In July 2025, the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights released a damning report outlining the alarming rise of transnational repression (TNR) — the targeting of dissidents living abroad by foreign governments. Pakistan was explicitly named among the most aggressive offenders, alongside China, Russia, Iran, and India. Since 2022, threats monitored by UK intelligence agency MI5 have surged by 48%, with methods ranging from digital harassment and physical intimidation to the misuse of Interpol “Red Notices.” As Committee Chair Lord Alton warned, such tactics are “undermining the UK’s ability to protect the human rights of its citizens and those seeking safety.”
The implications are stark: authoritarian regimes, including Pakistan’s current military-backed government, are no longer satisfied with controlling domestic narratives. They are exporting their repression — and the UK, US, and other liberal democracies are struggling to respond.
The Long Arm of the ISI
Pakistan’s domestic architecture of oppression — built through censorship, enforced disappearances, and judicial manipulation — has now metastasized internationally. The 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) was initially framed as a tool to fight cybercrime, but amendments introduced in January 2025 have enabled sweeping arrests and convictions of journalists for “false news” and “defamation.” With vague language and harsh penalties, the law is a scalpel in the hands of Pakistan’s deep state — carving out silence from dissent.
This same apparatus has reached foreign soil.
Consider the case of Roshaan Khattak, a Pakistani documentarian and human rights activist in exile in the UK. His PhD research at Cambridge, focusing on enforced disappearances in Balochistan, drew ire from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). By late 2024, Khattak began receiving credible death threats — even while in the UK. In one chilling message, he was told, “Don’t forget… even in Cambridge, they can reach anywhere.” In a disturbing twist, Khattak was then evicted from university housing, effectively leaving him vulnerable. British MPs and human rights organizations have condemned the move as a capitulation to foreign intimidation.
Khattak’s story is not isolated. Activists, journalists, and political dissidents — from Balochistan to Gilgit-Baltistan, from the PTI diaspora to Kashmiri separatists — have all reported surveillance, threats, or attacks on their families back home. Dr. Toqeer Gilani, a US-based leader of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), revealed this year that his wife, still in Pakistan, is being harassed by police — a clear act of retribution for his activism abroad.
In March 2025, journalist Mohammad Waheed Murad was arrested in Pakistan and charged with “online terrorism” after criticizing the military. Independent journalist Farhan Malik, founder of the anti-establishment media outlet Raftaar, was also arrested for allegedly promoting “illegal content” online. Both cases underscore the growing intolerance for dissent at home — and hint at the motivations behind silencing voices overseas.
The Deadly Pattern: Karima, Sajid, Goraya
The tragic deaths of Karima Baloch in Canada and Sajid Hussain in Sweden — both exiled activists from Pakistan’s Baloch minority — still reverberate. Their disappearances in 2020, followed by the discovery of their bodies under suspicious circumstances, fit a broader pattern of systematic targeting. Both had been outspoken critics of the Pakistani military and had fled after receiving death threats. Theories of suicide were widely dismissed by those close to them. Few believe these were accidents.
In 2021, UK authorities foiled an assassination attempt on Ahmad Waqas Goraya, a Pakistani blogger and vocal critic of the army. A British citizen of Pakistani origin was convicted of conspiring to murder Goraya, reportedly on orders from a Pakistan-based intermediary. The FBI had already warned Goraya and others that they were on a “death list” compiled by Pakistani intelligence operatives.
Families as Collateral
The methods of repression are not limited to assassination plots. Pakistan’s intelligence services have perfected a more insidious strategy: targeting families.
During a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing in the US, exiled Pakistanis described being monitored by individuals linked to Pakistani embassies and intelligence units. Their families back home, meanwhile, are harassed, detained, or disappeared — an unmistakable warning: Speak out, and your loved ones will pay the price.
In June 2025, Pakistani-Americans who protested outside the Pakistani embassy in Washington reported that within 48 hours, relatives in Pakistan were abducted or questioned. These moves are part of a deliberate psychological campaign to instill fear, break resolve, and dismantle resistance abroad.
The Khan Factor
The fallout from Imran Khan’s removal and imprisonment in 2022 has further inflamed this strategy of repression. With much of the former Prime Minister’s support base now in exile, Pakistan’s military-led government has turned its attention to silencing international critics. Zulfi Bukhari, a close aide to Khan, testified before the US Congress this July, warning of over 200 politically motivated cases against Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi. He also described a collapsing justice system, a complicit media, and brutal prison conditions for political opponents.
An Emerging Global Consensus?
There is growing international recognition that Pakistan’s military-intelligence complex is engaging in systematic transnational repression — in effect, weaponizing diaspora politics to suppress criticism. Western lawmakers are beginning to respond. US legislators have floated the idea of sanctions. UK parliamentarians have spoken out in defense of academic freedom and protection for exiles like Khattak.
But rhetoric is not enough. Unless laws are enforced and protections are institutionalized, threats will continue — and the chilling effect will deepen.
Pakistan is not alone in this behavior. The globalization of repression has been perfected by regimes like Turkey, China, Russia, and North Korea. But the case of Pakistan is especially alarming: an ostensibly democratic ally of the West is now deploying its intelligence services to crush civil liberties far beyond its borders.
If unchecked, these tactics risk normalizing Orwellian patterns of global control of 1984. The message is as blunt as it is brutal: you can flee the homeland, but you cannot escape its hand
Conclusion
It is time for liberal democracies to draw a red line. Dissent is not a crime. Journalism is not terrorism. And exile should not mean vulnerability. The UK, the US, the EU — all must treat transnational repression for what it is: a grave and growing threat to freedom of speech, rule of law, and sovereignty.
The West must act. Or the seeds of truth, no matter how bravely planted, may never be allowed to grow.
About the author: Dimitra Staikou is a Greek lawyer, human rights advocate . She works as a journalist writing about human right's violations in South Asia and ctravels to India to get informed about the political situation there and the geopolitcs between India,China ,Pakistan and Bangladesh. She works for Greece's biggest newspaper Skai.gr and Huffpost.Gr.
