$5-$20 for any amount is comparable or much less than almost any international transaction fee. If you're other option is transferring money out of the authoritarian country into your destination then this could be very attractive.
The problem is that the Bitcoin fee is also payable on all domestic transfers too, which of course are free in traditional banking.
You are also going to paying exchange fees each way and those fees are likely to be quite large in authoritarian countries (as any illegal activity is generally more expensive).