Watch How Dictators Spy Using Cybersecurity Laws Within the EU and U.S.
A chilling thread on how easily dictatorial countries can request and potentially gain access to private #EU and U.S. data of individuals and entities on fabricated charges. In my case, this time, thanks to the defense of the #Belgian judicial system, it failed 🧵
In 2022, Kazakhstani secret service operatives came up with a crafty plan: they filed a 'cyberbullying' criminal complaint as "parents of their minor children" in #Belgium to create for the second time a legal backdoor to access my and Open Dialogue Foundation's private #financial, #travel and #communications data stored not only in the EU but also in the United States and worldwide.
A Belgian judge refused to comply, but we still don't know if #Kazakhstan got that data directly from the United States or potentially other countries. Their target? To force ODF and me to delete video evidence from social media about mass #torture and political #killings in Kazakhstan, where survivors of torture have given names and testified against their crimes.
The Belgian judge saw through the charade, dismissing the case and noting it appeared designed "to use Belgian justice to collect the maximum amount of personal and private data on #Kozlovska for purposes other than simply revealing the truth."
My case has already made headlines because of the abuse of AML/CFT laws and weaponization of my banking data during 2018-2023 by at least three authoritarian regimes. At that time these abuses led to the effective financial exclusion of myself and ODF from the traditional Belgian financial system.
We survived and held accountable perpetrators thanks to #Bitcoin.
This time the defense worked with court intervention, but secret agents are abusing appeal process as a classic #SLAPP case to exhaust me and ODF financially and compromise physical security in the EU and US.
This isn't an isolated incident. It's a playbook: authoritarian regimes exploiting Western legal protections like AML/CFT & cybersecurity laws to spy on, intimidate, and silence critics or uncomfortable business competitors abroad.
We live in a reality where the majority of countries are non-democratic, and in the last 10 years have abused the Western system of inter-state cooperation, including #INTERPOL, extraditions, AML/CFT laws and now cybersecurity cooperation for espionage, political assassination and stealing businesses.
Consider this: what happens to the countless lesser-known cases that face the same tactics WITHOUT public attention? They are exposed without public and, in practice, legal protections that could safeguard them, because in the case of cybersecurity or ML/TF offenses, such requests are automatically enforced on the basis of trust/preventive measures.
It is high time to review these rules and protect EU and US citizens, residents, and entities from such abuses.
#TransnationalRepression #DigitalRights #Cybersecurity #HumanRights
