Freedom House, a civil liberties organisation, has released a new briefing titled Visible and Invisible Bars: Political Imprisonment, Civil Death, and the Consequences of Democratic Erosion. The report examines how authoritarian regimes use both overt and covert methods to suppress dissent and erode democratic principles.
While the overt tactic of political imprisonment is well-documented, the report sheds light on the more insidious practice of “civil death,” where individuals are systematically stripped of their civil rights and societal participation without physical incarceration. As the report observes, a key aspect of civil death involves the state’s control over personal assets, including the seizure of property and freezing of bank accounts, effectively incapacitating those who oppose or criticise the regime.
The report focuses on six countries that have experienced significant democratic decline in the past two decades: Nicaragua, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, and Venezuela. Through interviews with 42 country experts, including civil society actors, human rights defenders, journalists, researchers, and academics—some of whom have personally endured political imprisonment and elements of civil death—the report documents the tactics used to silence dissent.
One of these tactics is controlling people’s assets.
As Freedom House’s report makes clear, the impact extends beyond the individuals directly targeted. Families and dependents suffer financial exclusion, facing economic instability and social ostracisation. Witnessing the repercussions faced by dissenters, peers and colleagues may choose to conform to prevailing opinions to avoid similar fates.
For instance, political detainees deemed to have violated Venezuela’s Organic Law against Organised Crime and Financing of Terrorism can have their property confiscated under the law, including after they have left or fled the country. “You can see a lot of houses and offices around the country where the police…the intelligence officers…use it personally, privately,” said a Venezuelan civil society leader, speaking of the seized properties. Venezuelan authorities have also frozen opponents’ bank accounts and confiscated property and businesses more generally. Like other tactics, asset freezes may also be levied against family members.
The Nicaraguan government’s use of financial control as a weapon has been similarly chilling. After the 2018 anti-government protests, President Daniel Ortega’s administration froze the bank accounts of prominent activists, journalists, and independent media outlets. In one instance, the assets of the country’s largest independent newspaper, La Prensa, were seized, forcing it to halt its print edition. As one Nicaraguan journalist said: “There are people who have not been accused of treason but are opponents, but their homes have disappeared from the civil registry of property. That is, one day you are left with nothing. Your bank accounts are frozen, and the bank doesn’t even warn you.”
A Tanzanian civil society actor that Freedom House researchers spoke to ultimately lost his company after facing baseless criminal charges and other measures contributing to civil death: “My passport was taken,” he said.
“My personal bank accounts were frozen. I had a for-profit business. Now this is what they do…They make sure that you don’t do business. I was no longer generating revenue because they managed to get into all people I was working with, my suppliers, whomever…they intimidated [them] and all of them stopped working with me. The company that I owned was taken by some guys from the ruling party without me signing any document.”
While these practices are most pronounced in authoritarian regimes marked by democratic decline, there are emerging parallels in Western democracies.
In the UK, for instance, there have been numerous cases where financial services have been withdrawn from individuals or organisations based on their political views or affiliations. This phenomenon, often referred to as ‘de-banking’, or ‘politically motivated financial censorship’, involves banks or payment processors terminating services to clients deemed controversial or non-compliant with prevailing ideological norms.
A notable case involves our own organisation, the Free Speech Union (FSU), which defends people’s right to free speech without taking sides on the issues they’re speaking about. In September 2022, our accounts were abruptly closed by PayPal without prior warning or a clear explanation. Defending individuals and groups who express lawful views that dissent from prevailing orthodoxy was evidently sufficient to prompt this sinister form of financial censorship. It’s an incident that highlights just how much ‘mission creep’ is possible when financial tools are weaponised to suppress viewpoints that elites find distasteful or politically inconvenient.
Other cases in the UK and the US demonstrate the growing reach of financial censorship. In the UK, the UK Medical Freedom Alliance, an organisation critical of certain public health policies, reported being demonetised by PayPal. Similarly, UsforThem, a UK-based parents’ group that campaigned to keep schools open during the pandemic, had its accounts shut down by PayPal due to “the nature of its activities.”
Independent media outlets have also been targeted. MintPress News, a left-wing web-based platform, and Consortium News, founded by the late investigative journalist Robert Parry, were both deplatformed by PayPal. Their alleged offence? Publishing stories that questioned aspects of Western reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Such actions raise serious concerns over the selective use of financial controls to marginalise dissenting voices.
During the 2022 truckers’ protests in Canada against vaccine mandates, the government invoked emergency powers to freeze the bank accounts of protesters and their financial supporters. This unprecedented move raised serious concerns about the potential for financial institutions to be used as instruments of state control, even in democratic societies.
In another UK example, Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform Party, faced the closure of his bank accounts by Coutts, a subsidiary of the financial giant NatWest Group. Initially justified on commercial grounds, subsequent revelations made clear that the decision was politically motivated. This case underscores the opaque and arbitrary nature of financial exclusions, which often disproportionately target those with non-mainstream opinions.
While financial censorship in democratic contexts is less systematic and brutal than the repression seen in authoritarian regimes, the erosion of access to financial services for dissenters represents a significant threat to free speech and pluralism. If financial tools continue to be weaponised against those with dissenting or unpopular opinions, the risk of democratic societies taking an authoritarian turn and drifting toward a culture of conformity becomes real.
