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Ben Keith has published a piece for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation arguing that holding INTERPOL’s 94th General Assembly in Hong Kong later this year is a serious mistake. The article is also available on Red Notice Monitor, which Ben edits.
Hong Kong runs a sophisticated public relations operation, and the General Assembly will be used to lend international legitimacy to a jurisdiction now engaged in the systematic suppression of peaceful political expression. INTERPOL says it welcomes media and civil society to its sessions. The reality is that journalists and NGOs who have reported critically on Hong Kong cannot safely attend, because they risk arrest under the National Security Law of 2020 and the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance of 2024.
Since those laws came into force, the Hong Kong authorities have issued arrest warrants and bounties for at least 19 overseas pro-democracy activists, cancelled passports, interrogated family members in the territory, and brought criminal charges as leverage. The host of an INTERPOL General Assembly should be a jurisdiction whose police force operates within the rule of law. Hong Kong’s, on the current record, does not.
A Red Notice is a request circulated to all 196 INTERPOL member countries to locate and arrest an individual pending extradition. It is not technically an arrest warrant, and in practice it often functions as one. China is among the most persistent and sophisticated abusers of the system.
Through its “Fox Hunt” and “Sky Net” programmes, Beijing uses Red Notices to locate targets abroad as one element of a wider transnational repression campaign, paired with threats to family members, asset freezes, surveillance and pressure to return “voluntarily”. The charges are almost invariably financial, allegations of fraud or embezzlement that are difficult for any outside body to verify and straightforward to fabricate.
There is a particular risk to the more than 166,000 Hong Kongers who have arrived in the United Kingdom on British National Overseas (BNO) visas since 2021. The BNO route leads to settlement after five years, and it protects holders while they are in the United Kingdom. It does not protect them anywhere else. A BNO visa holder who travels to a country with an extradition relationship with Hong Kong or China, including France and Italy, faces a real risk of arrest, detention and extradition if a Red Notice is in place. Anyone who is or may be of interest to Hong Kong’s national security apparatus should think very carefully before travelling abroad.
With thanks to the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation for publishing Ben’s piece. For confidential advice on an INTERPOL Red Notice arising from Hong Kong, please contact us.
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IHR-Advisors at the House of Lords on 29 March 2023
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