CCP police leader elected to Interpol’s top committee despite human rights concerns, “red alert” abuse

A top Chinese Communist Party police leader was elected to serve a three-year term on Interpol’s executive committee on Thursday over the objections of exiled activists and an international alliance of legislators.

Hu Binchen, deputy director general of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, was elected to one of the committee’s two Asia slots during Interpol’s General Assembly meeting in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security oversees law enforcement in the country, covering around 2 million law enforcement officers. The agency also operates “Operation Fox Hunt,” whose goal is to coerce Chinese dissidents abroad back to China.

Hu’s election puts “tens of thousands of Hong Kongers, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese and Chinese dissidents living abroad at even graver risk,” said Andrew Gattolin, French Senator and co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC).

IPAC is an “international cross-party group towards reform on how democratic countries approach China.” It issued a statement opposing Hu’s candidacy last Monday, pointing to recent attempts by the Chinese government to use the “Red Notice” normally used to pursue fugitives to “persecute dissidents in exile.”

As an example, it cites the arrest of Uyghur activist Idris Hasan in Morocco on a now-deleted Red Notice. Amnesty International issued a press statement saying that Moroccan authorities must not extradite Hasan to China due to “risk of torture.”

Hu’s election was not the only controversial figure to be elected at the meeting. Emerati Major-General Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi was elected Interpol president. Two British citizens who were imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates have alleged Raisi oversaw their physical abuse.

One of the men, Matthew Hedges, tweeted that Raisi’s Interpol election was “a serious attack on the values it stands for” and “gives a green light to other authoritarian states that they can act without [sic] impunity.

Hedges was a PhD student in 2018 when he was arrested in Dubai during a research trip and imprisoned for seven months.

Turkey has been accused of abusing its position as host to push for the arrest of Turkish dissident citizens abroad.