Repeat offender: China’s violations of INTERPOL rules continue in Benin and Thailand
safeguarddefenders.com
The People’s Republic of China’s use of multilateral police cooperation mechanisms reads like a textbook example of how to get away with murder… time and again. At the time of writing, two Chinese individuals are facing imminent extradition to China. Continents apart, one element connects them: once again, INTERPOL Red Notices leading to their arrest appear to exist in violation of the organization’s regulations. Gao Jianhuan (高建焕), a 45-year-old man from Yueqing in China’s Zhejiang province fled to Vietnam in 2017 after facing years of what he calls persecution by Chinese authorities.

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Amidst increasing pushback on [China’s] widespread and systematic human rights abuse in its prison and detention system that led the European Court of Human Rights to bar extraditions to the country on grounds of the existence of a “general situation of violence”, Chinese authorities are not relenting in their quest to obtain the forced return of individuals in plain violation of the ius cogens principle of non-refoulement.

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[in one case, Chinese] authorities knowingly lied to INTERPOL when filing their international request. As official documents submitted to Thai courts in support of the extradition request demonstrate, the real date of the Chinese arrest warrant does not correspond to the one declared to INTERPOL.

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It begs the question: when will actual consequences be imposed on this repeat offender?

We call on INTERPOL’s General Secretariat to utilize its powers under [established] rules and evaluate China’s use of Red Notices, Diffusions, and other INTERPOL mechanisms after a string of abuse has been uncovered spanning several years.