Ben Keith at House of Lords: Transnational Repression of Journalists

Ben Keith Speaks at House of Lords Panel on Transnational Repression Against Journalists

On 15 May 2025, IHR Advisors co-hosted a panel at the House of Lords on transnational repression against journalists, alongside Hong Kong Watch and the IBAHRI. Our co-founder Ben Keith spoke on the misuse of INTERPOL’s Red Notice system to silence reporters in exile.

The event was chaired by Lord Murray of Blidworth, a member of the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR), which is currently inquiring into transnational repression. It drew around fifty parliamentarians, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists and policymakers.

Why this panel mattered

Transnational repression — authoritarian states reaching beyond their borders to silence critics — is one of the most pressing threats to journalists in exile. The tools are no longer blunt; they are the technical machinery of international cooperation: INTERPOL notices, extradition treaties, mutual legal assistance, financial intelligence channels.

IHR Advisors acts at that intersection. We have represented journalists, dissidents and activists targeted by Russia, Türkiye, Iran, China, Georgia, Ukraine, the Gulf and Central Asia — and we have seen the same international architecture designed to fight crime turned on critics.

Ben Keith: INTERPOL abuse and the legal architecture of repression

Ben set out where the international system is failing. He focused on:

• Abuse of Red Notices by authoritarian states to harass exiled journalists, trigger arrest abroad and impose de facto travel bans even where extradition will never succeed;
• “Diffusions” — INTERPOL’s less visible, bilaterally circulated alerts, often used to side-step Red Notice safeguards;
• Case examples from his own practice involving journalists and dissidents targeted from Russia, Georgia and Ukraine; and
• Remedies before the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) — necessary but reactive, and insufficient on their own.

His core message: misuse of INTERPOL is a zero-cost weapon. The requesting state pays no political price; the target loses freedom of movement, employability and reputation. Closing that gap demands better INTERPOL gatekeeping and better responses in host states — including the UK.

Voices from the front line

Kerim Balci, Turkish journalist and academic, described Ankara’s systematic post-2016 campaign against journalists abroad — extradition requests, manipulation of INTERPOL’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database, and misuse of Financial Intelligence Units to freeze bank accounts. Routine cooperation tools, inverted into instruments of persecution.

Lyndon Li, former Voice of America reporter and exiled Chinese dissident, spoke about espionage and surveillance by PRC agents on UK university campuses and in the course of his journalism. His account confirms what we hear from clients: transnational repression is not primarily about arrests — it is about fear, and fear is cheaper to manufacture than prosecutions.

Catherine Philp, foreign correspondent at The Times, argued that London has become a hotspot for repressive action against journalists. She criticised the UK government’s reluctance to rule out publicly that detained foreign correspondents are spies, and its hesitancy to sanction the individuals orchestrating attacks on journalists overseas.

Three reform priorities

Likely themes of the JCHR’s forthcoming report:

1. INTERPOL must be held to its own rules. Articles 2 and 3 of its Constitution exist precisely to stop the system being used against journalists and dissidents. Enforcement remains uneven.
2. States must own what happens on their soil — treating transnational repression as a discrete operational priority, sanctioning identifiable perpetrators, and refusing to default to “no comment” on detained journalists abroad.
3. Networks beat isolation. Lawyers, journalists, activists and academics in different regions need to share casework, intelligence and strategy.

How IHR Advisors can help

If you are a journalist, dissident, NGO or media organisation facing transnational repression, we can assist with:

• INTERPOL Red Notice and Diffusion removal — preventive risk assessments, CCF submissions and post-publication challenges;
• Extradition defence and resistance to politically motivated mutual legal assistance requests;
• International human rights law strategy — UN Special Procedures, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the European Court of Human Rights;
• Sanctions advisory, including advocacy for the listing of individuals responsible for transnational repression;
• Press freedom advocacy and parliamentary engagement.

We are grateful to Hong Kong Watch and the IBAHRI for co-hosting, to Lord Murray for chairing, and to Kerim Balci, Lyndon Li and Catherine Philp for the courage and clarity of their contributions. The Hong Kong Watch write-up is available here.

Concerned about a Red Notice, Diffusion or other form of transnational repression? Contact our team