BTC Coalition & FreedomTech Embassy

Combating Transnational Financial Repression

Authoritarian regimes weaponise anti-money laundering rules, INTERPOL, mutual legal assistance treaties, and cybersecurity frameworks to debank, surveil, and silence their critics abroad. Targets include human rights defenders, opposition politicians, journalists, diaspora leaders, entrepreneurs, donors, and, increasingly, serving and former officials of EU and NATO member states.

Open Dialogue Foundation has led advocacy against this practice, known as transnational financial repression, since its own banking contracts were terminated following politically motivated prosecutions and smear campaigns by authoritarian and hybrid regimes. What began as a fight for our own survival became a systematic campaign to reform the international frameworks that make financial repression possible.

The Building True Change Coalition (BTC Coalition), led by ODF, amplifies the testimonials and voices of human rights defenders, political activists, donors, Bitcoin entrepreneurs, privacy technologists, and policy experts who have experienced or documented transnational financial repression. The FreedomTech Embassy is ODF’s activist network, coordinating advocacy across the EU, the United States, and international bodies including the OSCE, the Council of Europe, and the FATF. Together, the Coalition provides the evidence and the Embassy drives the reform.

In June and July 2026, our advocacy secured three major parliamentary breakthroughs. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the European Parliament, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe each adopted texts that define transnational financial repression, name donors as targets, protect privacy tools (including encrypted messaging, donation platforms, and digital payment tools) from being treated as suspicion indicators, and mandate compensation and redress mechanisms for victims. A binding international convention on transnational repression is now in development. These are the first coordinated parliamentary actions on this issue from both the European and transatlantic sides.

Our priorities:

1. Reform AML/CFT and INTERPOL frameworks to prevent their abuse for political persecution, including through pre-freeze verification, presumption-of-abuse rules for serial abuser states, and human rights safeguards in FATF Recommendations.
2. Protect financial inclusion and donor privacy in non-democratic and developing countries, including through Bitcoin, stablecoins, and privacy-preserving technologies.
3. Advance the international convention on transnational repression through the Council of Europe, the OSCE PA, and U.S. Congress.
4. Defend privacy-enhancing tools, end-to-end encryption, and secure communications against regulatory frameworks, including digital ID and age verification schemes, that can be exploited by authoritarian states.

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The Open Dialogue Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation. Your donations may be tax-deductible, subject to applicable laws.