Tag: UAE

The INTERPOL General Assembly Has Just Set Its Priorities, and Human Rights is Not One of Them

The INTERPOL General Assembly Has Just Set Its Priorities, and Human Rights is Not One of Them

I don’t recall another year in which INTERPOL received as much criticism from the media and advocacy organizations for its handling of government abuse of its channels – and did so much more to validate that criticism.

INTERPOL Headquarters, Lyon, France

This year, the INTERPOL 89th General Assembly met in Turkey.  When the host was announced, many of us expressed our frustration.  Turkey is well known for abusing INTERPOL.  The most glaring example was reportedly its attempt to put numerous people accused of participating in the failed coup against president Erdogan on the INTERPOL wanted list.  As member countries’ delegates were preparing for their trip to Istanbul this year, the Turkish government complained about INTERPOL refusing to cooperate in some of those cases against the Gülen movement.  INTERPOL’s rules do not grant countries-hosts of its meetings any privileges when it comes to filling high posts within the organization or voting to amend its rules.  However, for a country accused of abusing INTERPOL, the expenses are still worth it – if INTERPOL accepts the invitation, the host country looks accepted as well despite its misconduct.

We then learned that INTERPOL had lifted the “corrective measures” that it imposed on Syria nine years earlier.  That announcement from INTERPOL made even bigger news, with numerous voices expressing concern for Syrian refugees whose risk of being detained and extradited had become even more real.

The New Mosque (Yeni Cami) in Istanbul, Turkey

Yet another cause for concern was the UAE and China, both known for abusing INTERPOL, and who both fought to have their nationals elected to the Executive Committee.  The INTERPOL president heads the Executive Committee which, among other things, supervises the execution of the General Assembly’s decisions and the General Secretariat’s work.  The 89th General Assembly approved the changes to INTERPOL’s rules that are supposed to make the elections of president and other members of the Executive Committee more transparent and the Code of Conduct for Executive Committee members, all of this only to elect the UAE representative INTERPOL’s new president the next day.  This happened despite the serious allegations and harrowing recollections published against the country’s regime.  China now has its national on the Executive Committee as well.  To complete the sad irony, this Executive Committee will vote to adopt the Code of Conduct for its members presented to it by the General Assembly.

What about the redress mechanism for the victims of INTERPOL abuse?  While the General Assembly approved the organization’s budget for 2022, the already strained budget of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files responsible for adjudicating complaints from individuals challenging government use of INTERPOL’s resources was left virtually unchanged.  This is despite the growing number of cases before the Commission.  Finally, the 89th INTERPOL General Assembly did not consider the much-needed reforms necessary to guarantee victims of INTERPOL abuse due process.

Clearly, the majority of INTERPOL member countries do not take the abuse of the organization’s channels seriously.  If they did, the results of the 89th General Assembly would be very different – it would have selected a different president, passed the reforms to close the loopholes in the INTERPOL redress mechanism and significantly increased the budget of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files.

American Bar Association Panel ‘Red Notices and the INTERPOL Wanted List: Balancing Law Enforcement with Due Process’

American Bar Association Panel ‘Red Notices and the INTERPOL Wanted List: Balancing Law Enforcement with Due Process’

On January 29, 2019, Theodore Bromund (The Heritage Foundation), Michelle Estlund (Estlund Law), Yuriy Nemets (Nemets Law Firm), Rebecca Schaeffer (Fair Trials) and Bruce Zagaris (Berliner Corcoran & Rowe) spoke at the event ‘Red Notices and the INTERPOL Wanted List: Balancing Law Enforcement with Due Process’ organized by the American Bar Association (ABA) and Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists (ACFCS).  The panel discussed the problem of INTERPOL abuse by governments that use the organization’s resources to persecute political opponents and other victims of unlawful criminal prosecutions:

Red Notice Abuse: INTERPOL’s Disclosures Fail to Identify Countries-Offenders and Their Violations

Red Notice Abuse: INTERPOL’s Disclosures Fail to Identify Countries-Offenders and Their Violations

In its annual reports, the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files usually discloses the list of countries with regard to which it has received the most requests from individuals. It is important to remember that INTERPOL defines a request from an individual as a complaint, preliminary request, or request for access. The Commission prefers not to disclose the number of complaints it has received against each of the member countries, their nature, or its findings.

In its 2015 annual report, the Commission named the following member countries and the number of individual requests it had received concerning each of them:

  • Russia – 45
  • Ukraine – 24
  • USA – 23
  • UAE – 19
  • Egypt – 13
  • Italy – 13
  • India – 12
  • Venezuela – 10
  • Turkey – 9

The 2010 report is the only publication in which the Commission has publicly identified the countries against which it has received the majority of complaints. Since then, the Commission has only published the number of requests concerning individual countries without clarifying how many of those are complaints.

According to the 2010 report, Russia has been second only to India in terms of the number of requests and complaints. Between 2012 and 2015 (the 2011 annual report doesn’t contain the number of requests filed against individual countries), INTERPOL received more requests concerning Russia than any other country. At the same time, India moved to fourth place in 2013 and 2014 and seventh in 2015. In addition to Russia, the Commission has publicly identified other former Soviet Union republics with regard to which it has received individual requests, namely Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. In 2013, Ukraine was number seven. In 2015, it moved up to second place. Belarus was sixth in 2010, eighth in 2012, and ninth in 2013. The country isn’t mentioned in the 2014 or 2015 annual reports.

Among the countries that have remained on the Commission’s list since 2010 are the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and the United States. The United Arab Emirates has moved from fifth place in 2010 to second in 2012, eighth in 2013, second in 2014, and fourth in 2015. The United States and Venezuela have consistently appeared on that list too, with the United States remaining in third place since 2010.

Because these numbers reflect individual requests without specifying how many of those are complaints, their basis, or the Commission’s findings, they can’t be used to calculate how many times each member country has engaged in INTERPOL red notice abuse or understand the nature of that country’s violations. This lack of transparency has continued despite the dramatic increase in the number of individual requests and complaints in particular. The Commission should be more transparent and publish this information. It is necessary for the general public to stay informed so that it can hold INTERPOL and its member countries accountable.

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