Critics continue to decry a top Chinese security official’s candidacy to the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) as its General Assembly convenes from Nov. 23 to Nov. 25 in Istanbul, Turkey.
China’s candidate, Hu Binchen, is the deputy director-general of China’s International Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Public Security. He will join two other competitors to run for two seats for Asia in Interpol’s 13-member executive committee.
Canada’s former justice minister, Irwin Cotler, chastised the Chinese regime in an interview with Pezou on Nov. 18. Fifty legislators from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), including him and Senator Marco Rubio, issued an open letter to Interpol to express their concerns.
Cotler blamed Beijing for repeatedly abusing Interpol’s Red Notice, which resulted in “extraditions of dissidents who were subsequently the victims of arbitrary detention, torture, and imprisonment.”
He cited Uyghur leader Dolkun Isa, who was arrested en route to addressing the Italian Senate following a Red Notice issued by China, one which remained in place for nearly 20 years.
Given China’s previous transnational repression abroad in the name of Interpol, the former justice minister believed Hu’s election to the global police organization will “only exacerbate the already undue and prejudicial influence of the PRC [ People’s Republic of China].”
Cotler warned that “such an election will only further undermine the rules-based international order.”
Canadian MP Garnett Genuis, also a co-signatory of the letter, told Pezou on Nov. 19 that the candidacy of Hu to Interpol is a “danger to dissidents against the Chinese Communist Party [CCP].”
Genuis said Interpol’s role is for fostering international cooperation in law enforcement and combating injustice around the globe. “Unfortunately, we have again and again seen authoritarian regimes betray international trust and good will,” the MP noted, “by manipulating Interpol mechanisms intended to advance international peace and justice, and twisting them toward arbitrary political ends.”
President of Canada–Hong Kong Link, Gloria Fung, questioned the eligibility of communist China’s candidates to run for key postings in world organizations like Interpol, in a Nov. 16 interview with Pezou.
“ CCP itself creates terror and makes China a terrorist regime,” said Fung. “How can you expect a terrorist regime to combat terrorists? Absurd logic lies here, I would say.”
Fung said the CCP’s nominees are nothing but its agents being used to seep into global powerful institutions.
“In the recent two or three decades, the CCP has shown a penchant for placing its agents in whatever international agencies they find loopholes in,” she said. “ regime is after global discourse, power, and infiltration on all fronts.”
China’s previous representative in Interpol was Meng Hongwei, who served as its president from late 2016. However, the chief went missing during a visit back to his home country on Sept. 25, 2018, for undisclosed reasons, according to his wife Grace Meng. It was not until 12 days later that China declared Meng a suspect under investigation on charges of “serious violations of Party disciplines and laws” on the night of Oct. 7, 2018, following an AP interview with his wife on the same day.
On Nov. 18, Grace Meng again accepted an AP interview, showing her face to the public for the first time. During the talk, she called the CCP regime a “monster.”
Donna Ho contributed to this report.
Pezou : Opposition to Candidacy of Top Chinese Security Official to Interpol Heats Up