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The People’s Republic of China conducts the world’s most sophisticated and comprehensive campaign of transnational repression, targeting human rights defenders, journalists, students, artists, and members of religious and ethnic minorities. Uyghurs, an ethnic group from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, have fled repression in China for decades. Abroad, many members of the group face the threat of transnational repression via detention, unlawful deportation, rendition, coercion by proxy, surveillance, and digital harassment. Uyghur individuals are involved in over 20 percent of the incidents in Freedom House’s transnational repression database, which catalogues direct, physical cases around the world from 2014 to 2025.
Last month, Abdulhakim Idris, head of the Center for Uyghur Studies in Washington, DC, and a leading Uyghur scholar and advocate, was detained for nearly a day and subsequently expelled from Malaysia at the behest of Chinese authorities, preventing him from launching the Malay-language edition of his book about how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pressures governments in the Islamic world to remain silent about its persecution of Uyghurs. As Idris explains, this act of transnational repression sets a dangerous precedent for every other American advocate, journalist, and researcher operating abroad. Below, Idris describes his work exposing CCP abuses, and how they sought to silence him—in Malaysia and elsewhere.
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Abdulhakim Idris: The CCP considers me one of the foremost experts on its influence in Muslim-majority countries. My book is now translated into Turkish, Arabic, Malay, and Bahasa Indonesia. It has been an eye-opener about Chinese infiltration into Muslim-majority countries. Following its publication, both my wife and I were subjected to coordinated death threats and digital harassment. When I traveled to Jakarta for the Indonesian launch of the book, the Chinese embassy mobilized local proxies to stage public protests, including the burning of my picture and copies of my book.
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I arrived in Kuala Lumpur on March 29 ... A Malaysian immigration officer pulled me aside, took my passport, and brought me to his office. An officer introduced himself as a Royal Malaysia Police officer and said that I would be denied entry and be deported ... My US passport was seized [Note: US citizens are not required to apply for a visa for a business or tourism stay in Malaysia of less than 90 days], and I was held without justification for 21 hours in detention, given only one small meal and one small bottle of water, before being escorted by four police officers onto a deportation flight.
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This is not an isolated incident but a pattern of Chinese intimidation. Last year, I was similarly denied entry to Indonesia under pressure from the Chinese embassy in Jakarta, but that time, after intervention by the US government, I was able to secure entry. This time, despite the State Department and the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur escalating the matter to Malaysian immigration, Beijing prevailed. The escalation is alarming.
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Beijing’s goal is to silence my research before it reaches Malay-speaking communities. My only “crime” is being a dissident from a community persecuted by the Chinese government and exposing China’s broader threats to humanity, freedom, and democracy. China has now successfully used a third country to detain and expel a US citizen. If this stands, it sets a dangerous precedent for every American advocate, journalist, and researcher operating abroad. This is a clear case of Chinese transnational repression, specifically targeting me as a US citizen.
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I feared for my life. I was now being held by Malaysian law enforcement at the request of a state that has already made people like me disappear. The officer’s tone was hostile, treating me as though I were a criminal or a threat. Several men in plain clothes and dark glasses were present. They did not identify themselves, said nothing to me, and watched in silence. I did not know who they were or who they worked for.
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No immigration officer explained why I was being held.
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Transnational repression is... a painful, daily reality that has fundamentally reshaped my family’s life. The Chinese government frequently uses the safety and freedom of our loved ones back home as leverage to silence our advocacy in the West. Since repression of Uyghurs has intensified deeply since 2017, I have lost all contact with my relatives in Hotan. In Uyghur culture, family is everything. Being severed from one’s roots is a form of psychological warfare.
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This is a form of psychological torture that hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in the diaspora face every day. Because of the total lack of transparency in the region [of East Turkestan, known as Xinjiang in China], the exact circumstances of his death remain unclear. We do not know if he had access to medical care, or if the stress of the ongoing persecution contributed to his passing. What we do know is that he died in a police-state environment where his children were unable to fulfill their final duties to him.
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It extends beyond me personally. Our partners abroad now face pressure associated with us. Organizations that once welcomed us hesitate, knowing that hosting a Uyghur advocate can invite unwanted attention from their national secret law enforcement and from Beijing. This makes the work harder and narrows the space in which we can operate.
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However, I refuse to live in fear. I continue to travel across the world, to the European Parliament, to the United Nations, and throughout Muslim-majority countries, to speak the truth about what is happening. These crimes have not deterred me or some of our partners in Muslim-majority countries. On the contrary, our partners in Muslim-majority countries see the CCP’s infiltration of their countries and its undermining of their sovereignty. The Chinese Communist Party’s campaign of transnational repression was designed to silence me.
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The CCP’s campaign of transnational repression is an escalating assault on global stability. While it began with the silencing of Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Hong Kongers, it has now expanded to threaten the Taiwanese people and the sovereignty of every democratic nation. By exporting its authoritarian tactics, Beijing is actively eroding the foundations of freedom and democracy worldwide. The free world must recognize that a threat to one is an attack on the security of all.
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Western democracies must also act with urgency and principle. Governments such as the United States and Canada should strengthen legal protections for Uyghurs by advancing policies that recognize them as a uniquely persecuted group in need of priority protection and resettlement. Uyghurs living in exile, whether in Turkey, Germany, the United States, or elsewhere, need more than temporary residency. They need meaningful protection from transnational repression. Chinese state harassment, surveillance, and intimidation of Uyghurs abroad must be treated as a direct violation of national sovereignty and met with serious legal and diplomatic consequences.
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