Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed :
Interpol, the world’s leading police-cooperation body, aims to “connect police for a safer world.” Although the organisation’s constitution states that Interpol cannot engage in “any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character,” it is increasingly being subverted by autocratic regimes seeking to pursue their exiled political opponents. The number of Red Notices (a type of arrest request issued through Interpol) has increased tenfold in the past fifteen years. Those targeted face the risk of arrest if they travel across borders; have difficulties obtaining visas and open bank accounts; and suffer reputational damage. Interpol remains opaque and lacks accountability for its actions. Recent reforms have started to address some of these issues. But more needs to be done to prevent the hijacking, repurposing, and weaponising of Interpol by today’s globalised authoritarian regimes.
Interpol was at first mainly a European organization, drawing only limited support from the United States and other non-European countries (the United States did not join the ICPC until 1938). Under the leadership of French Secretary General Jean Nepote (1963-78), Interpol became increasingly effective. By the mid-1980s the number of member countries had risen to more than 125, representing all of the world’s inhabited continents; by the early 21st Century membership had surpassed 180.
In the 1970s the organisation’s ability to combat terrorism was impeded by Article 3 of its Constitution-which forbids “intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character”-and by a 1951 resolution of the General Assembly that defined a “political” crime as that whose circumstances and underlying motives are political, even if the act itself is illegal under Criminal Law. One source of these obstacles was removed in 1984, when the General Assembly revised the interpretation of Article 3 to permit Interpol to undertake antiterrorist activities in certain well-defined circumstances. Interpol was reorganised in 2001 following the September 11 attacks on the United States. The new post of executive director for police services was created to oversee several directorates, including those for regional and national police services, specialised crimes, and operational police support.
In November 2018, the 87th General Assembly of the Interpol meeting in Dubai, held a vote to choose the organisation’s new President. The office’s previous occupant, China’s former Public-Security Vice-Minister Meng Hongwei, had resigned the month before under unusual circumstances. Upon heading back to China for a visit in late September, he had mysteriously dropped out of contact. On October 7, a Chinese Communist Party disciplinary body confirmed that the head of the world’s leading transnational policing organisation was in custody and under investigation. He was the latest to fall victim to the sweeping Anti Corruption campaign launched in 2012 by President Xi Jinping, an initiative that had itself drawn on Interpol’s resources: Chinese authorities have employed Red Notices, global find-and-detain requests distributed through Interpol’s General Secretariat, to track down “economic fugitives.” In September 2017, Interpol held its 86th General Assembly in Beijing, where Xi Jinping declared China’s commitment to working through the organization to “take an active part in global security and make a new and greater contribution to peace and the development of mankind.”
The organisation is structured around four bodies. First, the General Assembly, consisting of delegates appointed by Interpol’s members, meets annually to make decisions concerning policies and finances. Second, a thirteen-person Executive Committee, headed by Interpol’s President, oversees the implementation of these decisions. Third, day-to-day operations are carried out by the General Secretariat in Lyon, headed since 2014 by German law-enforcement expert and former official Jürgen Stock. Finally, each member maintains a National Central Bureau (NCB) that acts as a liaison between its law-enforcement agencies and Interpol. In addition to these four central operational structures, the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF), an independent body established in 1982, is tasked with ensuring that the processing of personal data conforms to Interpol’s regulations.
Of the eight types of notices issued by Interpol, the organisation’s famed Red Notices most routinely have been used by authoritarian states to pursue their opponents abroad. These notices are requested to send to members that “seek the location of a wanted person and his/her detention, arrest or restriction of movement for the purpose of extradition, surrender or similar lawful action.” All Red Notices are reviewed by the General Secretariat to ensure that they contain sufficient information and that the charges that form the basis for the request are not politically motivated. If authoritarian governments wish to circumvent this requirement, however, they also have the option of pursuing their opponents abroad using Interpol’s less widely known diffusions. Like Red Notices, diffusions, often described as “all-points bulletins,” are aimed at locating and securing the arrest of a wanted individual-but they are sent directly to members through Interpol’s web-based information-sharing system, without first passing through any oversight mechanism.
Since international and other organisations began drawing attention to the misuse of Interpol in 2012, the organisation has taken steps toward reform. It announced in 2015 that it would not publish Red Notices for individuals who had obtained refugee status, and that it would remove existing entries for such persons. At the same time, Interpol declared its plans to subject Red Notices to increased scrutiny, publishing them only after a formal review. A new structure and set of operating rules, approved by the General Assembly in 2016, went into effect in March 2017. This overhaul restructured the CCF into two chambers, one focused on ensuring compliance with data-security rules and the other charged with handling applications for information and deletions by persons subject to Red Notices.
Moreover, implementation of the new policy protecting persons with refugee status, which is yet to be published on Interpol’s website despite having been announced in 2015. There have been some successful applications for deletions under the new rules. Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress, had his Chinese-issued Red Notice deleted in early 2018. (He had received refugee status more than two decades ago in Germany, where he had since become a citizen.) Kabiri, the leader of Tajikistan’s Islamic Renaissance Party, successfully had his Red Notice removed in early 2018 after receiving asylum in the EU. Yet as late as August 2017, Turkish journalist Hamza Yalcin was detained in Spain on a Red Notice despite having been granted asylum in Sweden.
Interpol is an international police organisation made up of 194 member countries. It is not a police force in the traditional sense-its agents are not able to arrest criminals. Interpol has become a full-fledged international organisation with the diplomatic privileges and ties that are essential if it is to perform its task properly. For nearly last ten decades, Interpol has been the driving force behind international cooperation to combat international criminality. The task is by no means, easy one and precisely law enforcement efforts are in constant danger of being frustrated by the ingenuity of criminals’ display and by the considerable resources, and some of them have at their disposal. And because of that the organization has been and can be of invaluable assistance to police force throughout the world. It is imperative that its activities be expanded and intensified to cope with ever-increasing menace of international criminality and that can only be done only of the member states are determined to increase their involvement in international police cooperation. Bangladesh being once in the executive body of Interpol made solemn pledge to keep its standard high to attain the desired result.
(Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed, Writer, Columnist & Researcher; e-mail: [email protected])
