Blog Post Dec 14, 2023 The 2023 Dictators’ Playbook: Stripping Dissidents of Citizenship In 2023, emboldened tyrants from Central America to Eastern Europe engaged in more drastic and crueler forms of repression in order to stamp out any possible challenges to their rule. The dictatorial regimes of Belarus and Nicaragua, for example, have taken their repression across their own borders, stripping exiled dissidents of their citizenship.