Turkey and Ukraine Trying to Involve INTERPOL in Mass Prosecutions?
In July 2017, Hürriyet Daily News reported that Turkey tried to put 60,000 individuals allegedly linked to the recent attempt to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the INTERPOL wanted list. Only INTERPOL and Turkey know how many of those 60,000 people had a red notice or diffusion recorded against them. It is unclear whether INTERPOL’s efforts to rebuff the attempt to abuse its channels have been effective.
Turkey is not the only country that has sought to use INTERPOL to persecute members of the same political, business, or other group en masse, although its attempt is one of the most egregious. Whether through a regular election or coup, an incoming government may decide to open a criminal investigation into the former cabinet members and use INTERPOL to locate them and seek their extradition. Ukraine is yet another recent example of a new government seeking INTERPOL’s cooperation in apprehending its predecessors.
It has been reported that INTERPOL denied most of Ukraine’s repeated requests to put Viktor Yanukovich, the ex-president of Ukraine, and many of his former cabinet members on the international wanted list. Ukraine has criticized INTERPOL’s unwillingness to cooperate and accused the organization of political bias. It is evident, however, that with regard to the requests from Turkey and Ukraine INTERPOL has been doing exactly the opposite: it has been trying to maintain its neutrality and avoid any involvement in politics, as Article 3 of its Constitution requires.
