What Americans Should Know About Interpol Abuse

Commentary From Ted Bromund on The Daily Signal.com (May 17):

Over the past few years, awareness has spread about the problem of Interpol abuse.

Interpol isn’t an international police agency, even though Hollywood likes to depict it as such. It’s actually more like an electronic bulletin board on which police agencies around the world can post their “wanted” notices.

Other police agencies can read the notices—or ignore them—as they choose.

Interpol isn’t supposed to get involved in politics. But not all of its members—and almost every country, except North Korea and Kosovo, are members of Interpol—are so scrupulous.

Interpol abuse happens when a nation (usually an authoritarian regime) puts a “wanted” notice on the Interpol bulletin board on a political opponent.

This abuse is generically known as transnational repression, because it cuts across national borders and it involves everything from spyware to assassinations to Interpol. But Interpol abuse is an important facet of the wider problem.

Every year, the U.S. State Department releases reports on human rights in every nation in the world. Last year, the department wisely started including Interpol abuse in those country reports.

This year’s reports, released at the end of March, named nine nations as Interpol abusers: Azerbaijan, Benin, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Nicaragua, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkey. They also cited dubious issues related to Interpol in China, Ecuador, and Mexico.

I have a lot of experience researching Interpol, and, though my work as an expert witness, I’ve seen a lot of Interpol abuse cases. Broadly speaking, I’d say the State Department’s list is a good start—Russia is certainly a notorious abuser—but far from complete. [read more]