Iran, Russia, Venezuela and other authoritarian governments abuse the agency to target critics.
Autocratic regimes and governments who sneer at the rule of law have found a new tool for harassing its critics and exporting repression. Surprisingly, it is ready to partner Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organisation. The time has come to Interpol democratic member-Among the 190-nation membership-stand up to the abuse of power.
Contrary to what is seen in the movies, not Interpol officers and does not make any arrests. It is a communication platform with the rules and procedures to be followed by its 190 Member States. However, the agency can issue a “red notice”, which can act as an international arrest warrant. That power has become a dangerous tool in the hands of the organization now wants to issue notifications for practically any person at the request of any government no meaningful rules of procedure was observed, no questions asked.
Interpol violations of individual rights, upon request of foreign governments, such as Russia, Iran and Venezuela are more common. In 2014, the organization issued 10.718 red notices, adding what it calls “targeted persons” to its database of international refugees. It is almost a 10-fold increase from 1,277 red notices issued in 2003
Targeted people arrested when they cross international borders may be denied a visa, and can be rotated away from the financial institutions, all based on any member State pending request for a red notice. More than half of those abused requests from countries ranked among the most corrupt by Transparency International, including Algeria, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Indonesia and Venezuela.
many red notices do not follow the request for extradition. They are misused to harass and restrict human rights activists and critics of the regime, rather than capture criminals. Russia uses three different Interpol red notices harass Bill Browder, the US-born British businessman. Mr. Browder was published on the imprisonment and murder of his Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had been working to expose corruption in the Kremlin. Canadian farmer Henk Tepper was arrested and held in Beirut in jail for a year, based on the fictional, Algeria, requested the red notice over a commercial dispute.
Several things are involved in the former executives of Yukos Oil Company in Russia. Consider Jewish philanthropist Leonid Nevzlin, a shareholder influential Israeli newspaper Haaretz and a former executive and main shareholder of Yukos. Mr. Nevzlin and his former colleagues Yukos was actively involved in civil society in Russia, but when they began to be financed opposition politicians, the Chairperson Vladimir Putin ‘s Government fictional legal proceedings to expropriate Yukos and destroy their leading position.
These cases are transparent and politically meritless-a raw demonstration of state power in Mr. Putin’s Russia. As a result, Russia was almost universally rebuffed when it tried to export a campaign, using the tools of international law, such as the issuance and contract requests to other countries the collection of evidence. In response to a request for assistance to the Russian contract Mr. Nevzlin case, the Swiss Federal Court concluded that the 2007 August 13 ,, that the “evidence” against Mr. Nevzlin “approve [s] suspected that his criminal proceedings were organized powers-that-be subordinated to the class of the rich” oligarchs “and do away with potential or sworn political opponents.”
But Interpol is an exception. It has insisted on maintaining these politically motivated red notices against Mr. Nevzlin to ten years. This is just one example of the organization’s failure to ensure their compliance with international human rights norms. Among the specific problems:
Interpol is not a procedure to meaningful review and consider the red notices when they are placed and do not distinguish between statements from different countries. The current process is opaque, with inconsistencies worthy of Alice’s Red Queen. Interpol will not meet the objectives or their lawyers. There is no hearing. There is no possibility to know and to confront the allegations, so many goals did not even know there is a statement.
Interpol is so overwhelmed that solve only 149 red notice problems in 2014-out of 10.718 new red notice this year. This is a backlog is so large that the total red notice database now exceeds 60,000 red notices. At the current pace, it will take 400 years Interpol to work with these issues red notices. Similarly, there is no legal solution for notice purposes as Interpol has negotiated itself immunity from judicial review. thus Interpol operate with impunity outside the Member States which are limited to international obligations and laws.
Of the 149 challenges Interpol red notice was resolved in 2014, 38% were deleted because they do not comply with international law or Interpol guidelines. It’s too high level of error, and the international community has taken note of the consequences of human rights in respect of persons targeted.
Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has been sent to the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has issued a number of resolutions condemning the abuse of Interpol. NGOs have lobbied for reform.
This situation would be intolerable democratic Member Interpol. Civilized countries with developing security arrangements for the rule of law, you may prefer to think otherwise, but their financial support and omissions combination makes complicit in the violation of a rogue nation inflicts through Interpol abuse.
Ms. Däubler-Gmelin, lawyer and law professor, is the EU’s High Level Expert Group member and former Minister of Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2016
