In a resolution to be debated at the plenary session on 12 November and voted on the following day, French MEP Chloé Ridel (S&D) is calling on the EU to do more to help and protect human rights defenders facing transnational repression.
According to Freedom House, over the 2014-2024 period, more than 25% of the world’s governments engaged in transnational repression.
Ms Ridel is therefore calling on the EU to include this type of repression in its policies, in particular in the post-2027 EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy and in the guidelines on human rights defenders. In addition, she asserts that the issue of transnational repression must be systematically addressed in the human rights clauses of EU agreements and in human rights dialogues with third countries.
She also wants the EU to do more to help victims. Among other things, she wants the EU to respond to the risks posed by digital technologies as facilitators of transnational repression and to ensure that human rights defenders are protected from online harassment, intimidation and censorship.
The MEP urges the EU and its Member States to mobilise all available instruments to protect human rights defenders and other targeted individuals, including the imposition of sanctions, visa bans and the expulsion of diplomats known to have engaged in acts of transnational repression.
See the draft resolution: https://aeur.eu/f/j7e (original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)