Pakistan is targeting exiled dissidents and journalists abroad through threats, surveillance, and coercion.

The poet Dinos Christianopoulos once wrote, “What didn’t you do to bury me, but you forgot I was a seed.” It’s a sentiment that resonates deeply with journalists—myself included—who have dared to challenge Pakistan’s security establishment and, in turn, faced a spectrum of retaliation, from threats to enforced disappearance.

The UK’s Joint Committee on Human Rights recently released a searing report on the rise of transnational repression, noting an alarming surge in foreign states targeting dissidents within British borders. Among the offenders: China, Russia, Iran, India—and Pakistan, whose presence on this list is growing more prominent by the day.

The UK government reports that investigations into such threats have jumped by 48 percent, with tactics ranging from harassment and intimidation to the misuse of Interpol Red Notices to muzzle critics. Lord Alton, chair of the committee, warned that this erosion of civil liberties is “undermining the UK’s ability to protect the human rights of its citizens and those seeking safety.” Pakistan’s current regime, increasingly associated with targeting dissidents abroad, now faces questions about whether Britain will hold it accountable—or continue allowing foreign repression to be outsourced to British soil.

This expansion of authoritarian reach is not limited to whispers in the shadows. In 2016, Pakistan enacted the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), ostensibly to combat hacking, cyber extortion, and digital harassment. But in January, amendments to the law granted sweeping new powers to authorities—enabling arrests, fines, and prison sentences for journalists accused of spreading “false information.” The result? A legal weapon now pointed not only inward, but outward.

Roshaan Khattak, a UK-based Pakistani documentarian and human rights activist, knows this firsthand. His doctoral work at Cambridge on enforced disappearances in Balochistan attracted the ire of Pakistan’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Beginning in December 2024, Khattak received anonymous threats, some signed by individuals claiming affiliation with the ISI.

One message, sent via X (formerly Twitter), warned chillingly: “Don’t forget—even in Cambridge…they can reach anywhere.” That warning became more than just metaphorical. Earlier this year, Khattak was evicted from university housing, stripping him of his last refuge. British MPs and international rights groups condemned the decision, calling it a disgraceful capitulation to foreign intimidation and a threat to academic freedom.

Pakistan’s deep state—particularly the military and the ISI—has long silenced domestic dissent through a combination of censorship, coercion, and kidnapping. But now, these tools are being exported. The U.S. State Department has officially classified Pakistan’s tactics as “transnational repression,” part of a wider strategy to instill fear in critics who dare speak from abroad.

Dr. Toqeer Gilani, a U.S.-based political activist and president of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, has similarly drawn the state’s ire. A staunch advocate of Kashmiri self-determination—rejecting both Indian and Pakistani claims—Dr. Gilani has advanced a platform of non-violence and diplomacy. His wife, Tahira Toqeer, remains in Pakistan and shares his activist stance. In May, Gilani revealed that Pakistani police had fabricated charges against her as a means of harassment. Under mounting pressure, he has publicly questioned whether Kashmir’s path to independence remains viable.

Journalists, too, are caught in the dragnet. On March 26, Mohammad Waheed Murad, a prominent journalist with Urdu News known for military criticism, was arrested in a raid allegedly led by intelligence agents. Charged with “online terrorism” and disseminating fake news, Murad’s case echoes that of Farhan Malik, founder of the independent platform Raftaar. Malik, whose reporting scrutinized state abuses, was detained by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Karachi for hosting so-called “illegal content” on YouTube—though later released on bail.

This pattern is not new. In 2020, two exiled Baloch activists—Karima Baloch in Canada and Sajid Hussain in Sweden—were found dead under suspicious circumstances after fleeing threats in Pakistan. Both had accused the Pakistani military of abuses in Balochistan. Their families reject the official narratives of suicide or accident, arguing these deaths are part of a broader, more sinister playbook.

In 2021, British intelligence thwarted a plot to assassinate Ahmad Waqas Goraya, a Pakistani dissident blogger based in the Netherlands. A British national of Pakistani origin was convicted of conspiring with a Pakistan-based intermediary to carry out the hit. The FBI had earlier warned Goraya—and others like him—that they were on a secret “death list” compiled by Pakistani intelligence.

The net is tightening. During a recent hearing before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the U.S. Congress, witnesses testified that dissidents abroad are routinely monitored by Pakistani diplomatic missions and intelligence operatives. Their families back home? Targets of police raids, abduction, and intimidation. When Pakistani-Americans staged a protest in front of their country’s embassy in Washington in June, relatives in Pakistan were reportedly abducted within 48 hours. The message was unmistakable: Your activism abroad could cost your family at home.

This is not idle paranoia. In July, several YouTube channels based in Pakistan that had been critical of the army were suddenly blocked—part of an aggressive expansion of digital censorship far beyond Pakistan’s borders.

The crackdown coincides with the political implosion surrounding former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Since Khan’s ouster and imprisonment in 2022, Islamabad has turned its gaze outward—going after his allies and sympathizers who fled abroad. Pakistani expatriates who support Khan’s PTI party now report a surge in threats and pressure. On July 15, Zulfikar Bukhari, a senior PTI figure and Khan’s former media adviser, testified before the Tom Lantos Commission, claiming that nearly 200 politically motivated cases had been fabricated against Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi. He detailed the systematic abuse of human rights, suppression of media, the collapse of judicial independence, and appalling prison conditions inside Pakistan.

Western lawmakers are beginning to take notice. In the United States, members of Congress have warned that Washington “cannot stand by” while Pakistan’s military bulldozes civil rights. Sanctions, they hint, are on the table. In Britain, MPs across party lines have raised the case of Roshaan Khattak and demanded stronger safeguards for academic freedom.

But Pakistan’s security establishment seems undeterred. Analysts warn that as Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir consolidates power, cross-border repression will intensify. I myself have received threatening messages—on LinkedIn, on Twitter—after reporting on human rights violations in Pakistan. If Western democracies fail to build a robust framework for protection, Pakistani exiles and critical journalists will remain vulnerable to surveillance, intimidation, and worse—even on supposedly safe foreign soil.

Pakistan is not alone in this strategy. Its military and intelligence agencies are joining an ominous club that includes Turkey, North Korea, and China: states that routinely target exiles, civil society activists, and independent media beyond their borders. It’s a coordinated campaign to snuff out dissent, a 21st-century echo of 1984—not just repression at home, but suppression without borders.