“As Rapporteur of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly on abusive use of the Interpol Red Notice system to persecute human rights defenders and opposition politicians, I condemn the Red Notice against Dogan Akhanli requested by Turkey and invite Interpol to re-examine it in light of the rules outlawing politically-motivated interventions and to delete the Notice as appropriate. If an abuse is indeed found, Interpol should apply to Turkey the sanctions suggested in my report”, Bernd Fabritius (Germany, EPP/CD) said today.
In Resolution 2161 (2017) on the “Abusive recourse to the Interpol system: the need for more stringent legal safeguards”, PACE, on the basis of a report by Bernd Fabritius, noted that the Interpol Red Notice system was prone to abuse by certain countries and called on Interpol to implement remedial action in order to safeguard this important tool for international police cooperation.
Red notices, which allow police in one country to seek the arrest of a wanted person in another, should be circulated by Interpol only when there are “serious grounds for suspicion against the person in question”, the Assembly said.