Bend before others. In other words, they aren't follower members of a block. That says nothing about citizens or what exactly these countries are doing.

Edward Snowden is currently hiding from US power projection in Russia. He is of course beholden to Russian law; I assume if he were gay he'd be having a much worse time of it. But the specific point here is that it is possible to hide from the US in the territory of a country that does not answer to the US.