FSNN | Free Speech News Network https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html What 20 Million Bans Reveal About The Stress On Wikipedia’s Volunteers Homepage Cooking Up A Blue Plate Special Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Photo: Jay Galvin/CC BY 2.0 It was game, set and match for Bahraini dissidents Saeed Shehabi and Moosa Mohammed in their case against the Kingdom of Bahrain this week. The UK’s Supreme Court ruled in their favour, rejecting an appeal from Bahrain, which was claiming sovereign immunity from allegations it used spyware to infiltrate the computers of the pair in the UK back in 2011. We’ve been following the case and it’s hard to downplay this victory both for the men and for the broader ecosystem. The Kingdom had argued that section 5 of the State Immunity Act 1978, which creates an exemption to the act in the event of personal injuries and damage to property, was being misinterpreted and unduly broadened in this case. It said that a proper reading of the Act would afford immunity to states in cases where the actors or some of the acts causing personal injury were located outside the UK. But section 5 was enacted long before sophisticated spyware existed. The Supreme Court judges therefore rejected these arguments, stating that: “Modern technology enables acts of surveillance to be carried out in the UK remotely. Even if carried out by foreign state actors located outside the UK, such acts involve an infringement of UK territorial sovereignty.” Leigh Day, the law firm representing Shehabi and Mohammed, said that “the Supreme Court judgment has now settled the scope of section 5 of the State Immunity Act 1978. A foreign state cannot rely on state immunity to escape accountability for personal injury caused by acts within the UK, even where other causative acts take place abroad and the state’s agents are not present in this country. The court has recognised that a rigid distinction between the location of an act and its effects is artificial and unprincipled.” Shehabi said afterwards that “this is not just a victory for us, but for everyone targeted by authoritarian states beyond their own borders.” He’s right. We’ve been bleating on about transnational repression for years now because it’s prolific and getting worse. And when a dissident is attacked abroad, spyware is often a feature. This ruling makes clear that states can now be held officially accountable. As Shehabi also said after: “The hardest part of being targeted by alleged state-sponsored hacking is the feeling that nowhere is safe”. The UK arguably becomes a touch safer now. Mohammed said that the “victory changes the balance of power”. He spoke about being tortured by the Bahraini regime since he was a teenager and pursued across borders. “Today, the tables have turned,” he continued. “I am no longer the one being chased. I am chasing justice. I am chasing accountability. The era of abusing victims while hiding behind state immunity is over.” The UK has earned itself a reputation as a hunting ground for authoritarian regimes, and that’s partly because our response to counter it has been woeful. In some instances, police have told victims to keep a lower profile and that their cases are too hard to tackle because the assailants are overseas. So, it’s good to now have legal clarity on the question of proximity. Being abroad doesn’t grant you a get-out-of-jail-free card. 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Photo: Curated Lifestyle/Unsplash+ When we think of state censorship, we often picture prison cells, violent police crackdowns or control of newsrooms. However, our report titled The weaponisation of travel bans to silence speech and dissent published today by Index on Censorship reveals a quieter, less visible tool of state repression that is devastating civil society across the world. We found that rather than protecting public safety, governments are increasingly manipulating “national security” or “public order” exemptions to trap journalists, fracture families and exile critics. Our research shows that these bans are highly adaptable tools that occur around politically sensitive events such as protests, elections and crackdowns on democratic activity. Their shared, devastating objective is to control narratives, block external scrutiny and create a chilling effect on free expression. As we researched this topic, we strongly felt that to understand the severity of this crisis, the spotlight must remain entirely on the impacted individuals. The victims of this widespread authoritarian trend pay with their lives and livelihoods being upended by arbitrary and undemocratic measures. Our analysis highlights that in authoritarian contexts, travel bans act as overt tools of absolute repression. In Saudi Arabia, they function as a form of “quasi-detention”, ensuring that prisoners of conscience remain silenced long after they are physically released from their cells. Take the example of Salma Al-Shehab, a doctoral student at Leeds University, who was imprisoned simply for tweeting in support of women’s rights. Upon her release, she was handed an eight-year travel ban, effectively destroying her academic career by barring her return to the United Kingdom. Similarly, in Algeria, our research shows how journalists like Mustapha Bendjama find themselves trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare. Extrajudicial travel bans, known as ISTNs, are routinely issued by security agencies without formal judicial oversight, leaving targets in a legal vacuum with no clear avenues for appeal. Bendjama shared with us that this forced isolation acts as a “mental imprisonment” that has dried up his sources and severely compromised his ability to conduct rigorous journalism. One of our most troubled findings was that the chilling effect of these restrictions extends well beyond authoritarian states, creeping into hybrid democracies. In India, administrative tools like “Look Out Circulars” are deployed to trap critical voices within the country’s borders. Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, was prevented from travelling to New York to accept her award, sending a clear message that international recognition offers no immunity from state retaliation. In Georgia, foreign journalists who report critically on the country’s democratic backsliding have been arbitrarily denied re-entry at the border using generic legislative clauses. French journalist Clément Giradot was refused entry after reporting on political demonstrations, a decision that suddenly separated him from his home, his Georgian wife and his young child without any concrete legal justification. It became clear to us that these are not isolated administrative errors. We believe they are part of a coordinated assault on international human rights. Whether it is Nicaragua arbitrarily revoking citizenship to render critics stateless, Belarus forcing exiled dissidents into jeopardy by refusing to renew passports abroad or the United States deploying visa revocations and social media screenings against lawfully present critics, the goal appears to be one: to enforce widespread self-censorship and fear. The international community can no longer treat these administrative traps as routine border control measures. We urgently recommend taking action. States must do away with these opaque directives, end the use of secondary travel bans as a form of collective punishment against families and align their domestic laws with international human rights standards. Furthermore, democratic host nations must step in to provide secure legal status and alternative travel documents for exiled dissidents while applying sustained diplomatic pressure to demand the lifting of these arbitrary restrictions globally. Respecting and protecting freedom of speech should not know any ideological boundaries or state borders. With this report, we express our solidarity with the brave ones who raised their voices and with many more who were silenced and never known. While researching and interviewing participants at the front lines of this injustice, we were reminded of the importance of academia’s role as both a sanctuary for freedom of expression and a service to society at large. window.option_df_140795 = {“outline”:[],”autoEnableOutline”:”false”,”autoEnableThumbnail”:”false”,”overwritePDFOutline”:”false”,”direction”:”1″,”pageSize”:”0″,”source”:”https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/travel-bans-report.pdf”,”wpOptions”:”true”}; if(window.DFLIP && window.DFLIP.parseBooks){window.DFLIP.parseBooks();}   READ MORE Quantum Solutions, Hyperscale Data tap crypto treasuries to fund AI data centers RWA Perpetual Futures Near Bitcoin Volume on Hyperliquid, Binance Brickbat: Apples and Oranges CPJ, partners urge Tunisia to end unjust imprisonment of journalists Bitcoin steady as Japan holds rates at 1%, keeping the yen carry trade alive Trump’s Boat Strikes Killed 221 People, but Didn’t Win the War on Drugs Major bitcoin wallet flaw drains 594 BTC in 25-minute sweep US Spot Bitcoin ETFs Post Strongest Inflows in More Than Three Weeks Drones Over Egypt Bitcoin at $64,000 as Kospi’s record 17% surge leaves crypto untouched Tokenized Gold Survives DeFi Test as Lending Adoption Lags Homeland Security Is Spending $1 Billion on ‘Autonomous’ Border Surveillance Towers Nolan’s Odyssey Review: Beautiful but Dreary Crypto’s Next Altseason May Have Fewer Winners: Wintermute Crypto exchange Luno cuts 20% of staff amid automation push and retail trading slumps Lawyer Challenges Suspension for Being Too Phishable; No Dice, Says Appellate Court What Nolan’s Film Can’t Capture Crypto’s resilience is tested as oil surges back above $90 and the Fed signals rates could still rise Senator Schumer Proposes Agency to Address Corruption, Including Trump’s Crypto Ventures John Oliver Dares Buc-ee’s To Sue Him Over Trademark Infringement Trump’s New Director of National Intelligence Is a Menace to Liberty Everything is becoming a perp Coldcard Mk3 Warning Amid Unexplained 594 BTC Sweep The Bond Market Is Unhappy With the Federal Reserve’s Unwillingness To Fight Inflation Institutional crypto trading hits a record 72% as Wall Street calms crypto’s wild swings World Cup Prediction Markets Hit $20B as NFT Trading Reached $24M Jayson Gillham and the Politics of Arts Funding Scammers stole millions of XRP tokens from dozens of investors via a fake Flare Network site Coinbase Q2 Earnings Miss Estimates as Crypto Trading Slows The Real Cost of Turning Away Foreign Talent Ethereum enters its second decade after a year of upheaval at the foundation Bhutan’s Gelephu taps 3iQ to manage part of Bitcoin treasury Fauci Pleads the Fifth, Pluribus, Ross Douthat’s New CBS Gig