[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TOOLS OF TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION:
HOW AUTOCRATS PUNISH DISSENT OVERSEAS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 12, 2019
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Printed for the use of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
[CSCE 116-1-7]
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via www.csce.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-829PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
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COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
HOUSE SENATE
ALCEE L.HASTINGS, Florida ROGER WICKER, Mississippi,
Chairman Co-Chairman
JOE WILSON, South Carolina BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. Maryland
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
EMANUEL CLEAVER II, Missouri CORY GARDNER, Colorado
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee MARCO RUBIO, Florida
BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin TOM UDALL, New Mexico
MARC VEASEY, Texas SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Department of State, to be appointed
Department of Commerce, to be appointed
Department of Defense, to be appointed
[ii]
TOOLS OF TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION:
HOW AUTOCRATS PUNISH
DISSENT OVERSEAS
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September 12, 2019
COMMISSIONERS
Page
Hon. Roger F. Wicker, Co-Chairman, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe............................. 1
Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Ranking Member, Commission on Security
and Cooperation in Europe...................................... 3
Hon. Joe Wilson, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 4
Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 5
Hon. Marc Veasey, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 13
Hon. Cory Gardner, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe
WITNESSES
Alexander Cooley, Director, Columbia University's Harriman
Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe
and Claire Tow Professor of Political Science,
Barnard College................................................ 6
Nate Schenkkan, Director for Special Research, Freedom House..... 8
Bruno Min, Senior Legal and Policy Advisor, Fair Trials.......... 11
Sandra A. Grossman, Partner, Grossman Young & Hammond,
Immigration Law, LLC........................................... 14
APPENDIX
Prepared statement of Hon. Roger F. Wicker....................... 24
Prepared statement of Hon. Alcee L. Hastings..................... 27
Prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin.................... 28
Prepared statement of Alexander Cooley........................... 30
Prepared statement of Nate Schenkkan............................. 36
Prepared statement of Bruno Min.................................. 40
Prepared statement of Sandra A. Grossman......................... 51
MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
``Putin and other authoritarians' corruption is a weapon--and a
weakness,'' by David Petraeus and Sheldon Whitehouse........... 56
Prepared statement of Nadejda Atayeva, Uzbekistan................ 58
Prepared statement of Dolkun Isa, China.......................... 63
Prepared statement of Muhiddin Kabiri, Tajikistan................ 66
Prepared statement of Alexey Kharis, Russia...................... 71
Prepared statement of Ilhan Tanir, Turkey........................ 73
TOOLS OF TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION:
HOW AUTOCRATS PUNISH
DISSENT OVERSEAS
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September 12, 2019
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
The hearing was held at 10:19 a.m. in Room 210, Cannon
House Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Roger F. Wicker,
Co-Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
presiding.
Commissioners present: Hon. Roger F. Wicker, Co-Chairman,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Benjamin
L. Cardin, Ranking Member, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Joe Wilson, Commissioner,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Cory
Gardner, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation
in Europe; Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse, Commissioner, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe; and Hon. Marc Veasey,
Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Witnesses present: Alexander Cooley, Director, Columbia
University's Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia,
Eurasia and Eastern Europe and Claire Tow Professor of
Political Science, Barnard College; Nate Schenkkan, Director
for Special Research, Freedom House; Bruno Min, Senior Legal
and Policy Advisor, Fair Trials; and Sandra A. Grossman,
Partner, Grossman Young & Hammond, Immigration Law, LLC.
HON. ROGER F. WICKER, CO-CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Wicker. Well, welcome, everyone. How are we doing? Good
to see you. This hearing will come to order. Welcome on behalf
of the Helsinki Commission to this hearing on ``Tools of
Transnational Repression: How Autocrats Punish Dissent
Overseas.'' And I think I'll turn my ringer off before you all
learn what my ringtone is.
We've assembled an expert panel to probe how autocratic
states project repressive force beyond their borders to silence
dissenters, human rights defenders, journalists, and other
perceived enemies overseas. Autocrats today have access to a
range of tools to extend their reach by thousands of miles,
sometimes in fractions of a second. Some schemes rely on 21st
century technologies to hack, surveil, and intimidate targets,
while others use blunter tactics, such as extortion, abduction,
and assassination. This practice of transnational repression
constitutes a wholesale assault on the rule of law
internationally. It requires the attention of all democratic
nations.
This commission, the Helsinki Commission, is particularly
concerned by the politically motivated abuse of INTERPOL by
autocratic states wishing to harass and detain their opponents
overseas, often in the hopes of trying them on bogus criminal
charges. INTERPOL is a legitimate instrument for international
law enforcement cooperation, linking the law enforcement arms
of its 194 member countries through a global communications and
database network. The United States relies on INTERPOL daily to
bring criminals to justice and foil threats to global security.
As with the United Nations, however, INTERPOL's broad
membership leaves it open to manipulation by authoritarians.
Repressive regimes have seized on INTERPOL's potent tools
to harass and detain their perceived enemies anywhere in the
world. Red Notices and diffusions are among the most commonly
abused instruments at INTERPOL, as they constitute
international requests for detention and extradition. The
Helsinki Commission regularly receives reports from dissidents,
journalists, and human rights defenders across the OSCE region
who are targets of INTERPOL Notices or diffusions issued by
autocratic states on trumped up charges.
Perhaps the most prominent case is that of outspoken
Kremlin critic Bill Browder. After his lawyer, Sergei
Magnitsky, was murdered by Russian thugs for exposing state-
sponsored corruption, Mr. Browder emerged as a champion of
transparency and accountability for President Putin's misrule.
In response, the Kremlin has embarked on a more than decade-
long campaign to silence Bill Browder. As of today Russia has
issued at least eight politically motivated diffusions against
Mr. Browder. And yet, to our knowledge, INTERPOL has not
penalized Russia in any way to punish or deter this abuse.
To the contrary, Russia felt comfortable enough in its
position in the organization to have proposed a leading
candidate for the presidency of INTERPOL last fall. At the time
I joined with fellow Helsinki Commissioners Shaheen and Rubio,
along with Senator Coons, to denounce the Russian candidacy,
which fortunately was ultimately defeated after an outcry from
the United States and our European allies.
Of course, Mr. Browder is one victim, and Russia one
abuser, among many. Ahead of this hearing, the Helsinki
Commission received statements from individuals from China,
Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan who have been targeted by
authorities using INTERPOL. At this point I request that these
statements be entered into the record of this hearing. Is there
objection? Without objection, they'll be entered at this point.
The Helsinki Commission is taking action to address these
assaults on the rule of law. Chairman Alcee Hastings and I are
preparing to introduce bipartisan legislation in the House and
Senate to tackle the abuse of INTERPOL by autocrats.
The Transnational Repression Accountability and Prevention
Act will lay out priorities for U.S. engagement with INTERPOL,
encourage executive branch agencies to approve processes for
responding to politically motivated INTERPOL Notices, and
codify strict limits on how INTERPOL communications can be used
by U.S. authorities against individuals in our country. In
addition, this legislation will require the State Department to
report on trends in transnational repression in its annual
human rights report.
The U.S. has long been a champion of reform and good
governance within INTERPOL. Since 2016, INTERPOL, with U.S.
support, has enhanced vetting of Notices and diffusions,
created special protections for refugees, instituted greater
transparency regarding its adjudication of complaints from
victims, made rulings on complaints binding, and begun
reviewing thousands of long-standing Notices and diffusions.
But more remains to be done. The organization is in dire need
of greater transparency. Countries should face consequences,
including being denied leadership positions, for repeated
abuses.
I might add that this matter has been brought to the
attention, successfully, of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly at
our annual legislative meeting, just this past July. I
appreciate the support we had from around the OSCE area.
Our witnesses this morning will provide expert testimony on
the scale of this problem and policy recommendations to address
it. Before introducing them, do members of the Commission
request to be heard on this issue?
Senator Cardin.
HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, RANKING MEMBER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY
AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Cardin. Mr. Chairman, first let me thank you and
Congressman Hastings for calling this hearing. It's critically
important. As I was listening to your opening statement, I
agree completely with everything you said. This hearing
couldn't be more appropriately chaired by Senator Wicker,
``Tools for Transnational Repression.'' He's not only the
Senate chair of the Helsinki Commission, but he's vice
president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. So he's very much
engaged with our international partners in carrying out the
commitments of the Helsinki Final Act. And I applaud you for
your leadership on this.
As we know, the principles of Helsinki are freedom, and
peaceful and just democratic societies. And that those
principles are to protect the human rights of the citizens of
each country--from religious persecution, from the freedom of
the media, to freedom of NGOs, to the ability to peacefully
disagree with your government. That's part of the fundamental
principles of Helsinki. And as we all know, one of the binding
principles is that each member State has the right to challenge
actions in any other member State.
The problem we have is that it's not only oppression within
the country itself of its citizens. We now see the outreach
beyond their own geographical borders. And that is absolutely
outrageous. The most blatant example was Jamal Khashoggi's
murder in Turkey--the outreach of the Saudis in doing that. But
Turkey itself has abducted a dissenter from Malaysia. So, you
know, we find that--and the chairman's comments about the use
of Red Notices by INTERPOL is shocking, and something that has
to end. And I applaud your efforts to spotlight that at this
hearing, but also to pursue legislation.
How do we respond to it? Well, one way we respond to it is
by having this hearing. And we thank the witnesses that are
here. We put a spotlight on it. That's an extremely important
part. Passing legislation. And I very much look forward to
working with Senator Wicker on his legislation. Enforcing the
Magnitsky sanctions. We're now 10 years from when Sergei
Magnitsky was murdered. And the Congress responded in 2012 by
the passage of the Sergei Magnitsky sanctions law against
Russia--expanded it to global in 2016. And that has now taken
roots in many other countries around the world to let abusers
know that if they do this there will be consequences.
We used that against the Saudis in regard to the Khashoggi
murder, but it was used but not to the full extent. Congress,
under the Magnitsky statute, asked for further considerations,
which this administration has not complied with. So it's also
enforcing our laws here that can help deal with this
international problem.
So, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to take this time to thank you
for your leadership on this, to thank the panel for being here,
let us know that we very much will be united--Democrats and
Republicans--to deal with what is this new trend of the
transnational repression.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you, Senator Cardin.
Representative Wilson.
HON. JOE WILSON, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Co-Chairman Roger Wicker, with
Chairman Alcee Hastings, for calling this important hearing.
This topic is a critical and startling one. The enemies of
freedom and democracy around the world have always persecuted
those who dared to criticize them. This is an unfortunate
reality, one that I'm grateful to say the United States has
always fought against to promote freedom. But it is appalling
that now these tyrants and authoritarian regimes around the
world seek not only to persecute their critics at home: They
now chase them to the ends of the Earth, ensuring that no one
and no country is the world is safe for critics. Unfortunately,
these criminal regimes do this by exploiting the very
international rules-based order meant to prevent and fight
international crime.
This is a very serious issue. The fact that countries like
Russia, China, and Venezuela abuse their access to the
International Criminal Police Organization, or INTERPOL, to
issue bogus Notices with the express intent to repress dissent
against their own democratic regimes is dangerous. It is not
only imperiling to the champions of freedom around the world,
but it undermines the very integrity of INTERPOL and, more
broadly, of the international system we've worked so hard to
build.
Knowing how critical this issue really is, I'd like to
thank our expert panel today for their work and their testimony
today. I'm also appreciative of the opportunity to work with
Chairman Hastings on the House version of the Transnational
Repression Accountability Act, TRAP, which seeks to address
some of the ways autocrats exploit INTERPOL, as well as to
improve U.S. capabilities to identify and respond to instances
of abuse. I thank Chairman Hastings for his leadership on this
issue and commend the Helsinki Commission staff for their hard
work on the TRAP Act.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time, and I look
forward to hearing from our distinguished panel today.
Mr. Wicker. Senator Whitehouse.
HON. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY
AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Whitehouse. Well, this is a very special occasion
because Joe Wilson and I agree virtually 100 percent, which is
always a wonderful thing. [Laughter.] There is a lot of talk
about how there has been a clash of civilizations that
dominates the globe. I think there is a clash of civilizations,
and it's between rule of law civilization and kleptocracy,
autocracy, and criminality. Unfortunately, kleptocracy,
autocracy, and criminality, at some point, depend upon rule of
law. Because once you've stolen enough to become a very rich
person, suddenly rule of law looks like a good thing. And the
transit of the illicit proceeds from kleptocracy, autocracy,
and criminality into the protection of our rule of law is
something that we have a national security interest in
preventing.
And I'd like to ask that the article to that effect that
General David Petraeus, the former CIA director, and I wrote be
entered into the record, and express my appreciation to all of
these people here for helping to bring to light the dangers.
It's not just our allowing their use of the rule of law to
protect their ill-gotten gains. It's also needing to make sure
that their tools of repression that keep their populations in
place and punish whistleblowers are exposed, and that we do not
allow our rule-of-law tools to be used for purposes of
oppression.
So, Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you to the witnesses.
This is terrific work by the Helsinki Commission.
Mr. Wicker. I thank Senator Whitehouse. And without
objection, that article will be entered into the record.
And now to our panel.
First, Alexander Cooley, a political science professor at
Barnard College and director of Columbia University's Harriman
Institute. Professor Cooley wrote the book on extraterritorial
authoritarian practices. The book is entitled, ``Dictators
without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia,'' which was
co-authored by John Heathershaw and published in 2017. Drawing
on his scholarly work, Professor Cooley we hope will explain
the origins, scope, and trajectory of transnational repression.
Then we will hear from Nate Schenkkan to provide concrete
examples of these authoritarian practices based on his work as
director of special research at Freedom House.
Our third witness is Bruno Min, a senior legal and policy
advisor at Fair Trials, an international nonprofit that
monitors criminal justice standards around the world. Mr. Min
will present his experience leading the Fair Trials advocacy
relating to INTERPOL and other examples of cross-border justice
and discrimination.
And finally, we will hear from Sandra A. Grossman, an
immigration lawyer and founding partner of Grossman, Young &
Hammond, where she has honed her expertise in complex and
sensitive immigration issues, often involving statements
targeted by politically motivated INTERPOL communications.
I will refer you to the materials in your folders for our
witnesses' full bios. I look forward to their testimony. I
invite Professor Cooley to begin. We ask each of you to limit
your verbal remarks to 5 minutes. Welcome, Professor Cooley.
ALEXANDER COOLEY, DIRECTOR, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S HARRIMAN
INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF RUSSIA, EURASIA, AND EASTERN EUROPE
AND CLAIRE TOW PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, BARNARD COLLEGE
Mr. Cooley. Thank you, Co-Chairman Wicker and members of
the commission. Thank you for inviting me to testify about the
topic of transnational repression as part of this hearing on
reforming INTERPOL. And I request that my written testimony be
admitted into the record.
Mr. Wicker. Everyone's written statement will be admitted
into the record, without objection.
Mr. Cooley. Thank you.
My aim today is to explain why autocrats are increasingly
projecting their reach overseas and highlight how INTERPOL has
become a weapon in these efforts. By transnational repression,
I refer to the targeting by governments and their internal
security and intelligence services of the exiled co-national
political challengers, civil society advocates, non-pliant
business community members, and journalists who reside abroad.
These extraterritorial acts of repression may include coercive
acts, including assassination attempts, disappearances, forced
abductions, and renditions back to the home country--also, the
act of monitoring, infiltration, disruption of exiled
communities abroad, the harassment and intimidation of an
exiled political opponent's family members in the home state in
order to deter political activities abroad, and cooperation
between the security services of a host and sending country to
deny exiles due process that would determine eligibility for
political asylum.
Transnational repression is certainly not new. Think of
Soviet security services going after exiles and emigres after
the 1917 revolution. But this current wave does have
distinctive drivers and dynamics. It's foremost an outcome of
the recent global backlash against democratization. Democratic
optimism in the 1990s and early 2000s has given way to the
emergence of a more aggressive and a savvier breed of autocrat.
The so-called Color Revolutions of the mid-2000s and Arab
Spring in the Middle East have prompted authoritarians to
reframe democratic opponents and civil society activists as
security threats, intent on destabilizing and disrupting their
rule. So as political opponents flee these crackdowns and go
abroad, autocrats aggressively pursue them in exile and attempt
to deny safe spaces from which they can organize, broadcast
independent or oppositional media, and spotlight their
governments' abuses.
Second, globalization has created new diaspora communities
of economic migrants that leave their poor authoritarian home
countries in search for work. Cheap international
transportation, low-cost communications, allow for the constant
transmission of information, ideas, and values between
diasporas and their home-
country communities. And this raises the concerns of autocrats
that these overseas groups may become radicalized or
politically active back home.
Third, the rise of new digital and information
technologies, including social media, offers new tools to
authoritarians to extend their control of the information
space. Without leaving their own territorial borders, dictators
can now target the communications and social media profiles of
exiles abroad, disrupt online platforms, and damage anti-
government websites, and intimidate outspoken regime critics
with electronic messages and the collection of their personal
information.
This new transnational repression is taking place at a time
when the international environment during which liberal
democratic norms are weakening. Autocrats are actively
cooperating with one another and learning how to successfully
repurpose international institutions to avoid international
scrutiny and accountability for human rights abuses. Some of
this cooperation has been formalized with international
organizations. For example, the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, led by China and Russia and including most
Central Asian countries, maintains a common blacklist of
individuals and organizations under the auspices of its
regional anti-terrorism structure--RATS for short.
Though the list is officially meant to target the three
evils of extremism, terrorism, and separatism, in practice
human rights organizations have noted that member country
regimes use the SCO blacklist to deny each other's regime
opponents safe harbor and asylum. Experts have also cautioned
about the organization's overly broad definition of the three
evils, its practice of unconditional extradition, and its
opaque data sharing and classification practices.
In this more unsure international environment, autocrats
are also now repurposing INTERPOL to use against their
political enemies abroad, with the INTERPOL alerting system.
INTERPOL's own constitution mandates that the alert system must
not be abused for political purposes. However, in practice
authoritarians are increasingly violating neutrality by
designating wanted political opponents as criminals or even
terrorists. Over the last two decades, we've seen an explosion
in INTERPOL alerts, increasing almost tenfold from about 1,400
in 2001 to over 13,000 in 2013. The latest account on the
website mentioned 58,000 active Notices, about 7,000 of which
are public.
Russia and China issue a high volume of alerts, but
autocrats in smaller countries also appear to be abusing the
organization. For example, political scientist Ed Lemon has
uncovered that the small Central Asian state Tajikistan has
issued 2,500 Red Notices, while we have reporting that the
governments of Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iran, India and Venezuela
also aggressively abuse the list for political purposes.
I think it's important to mention that the repressive
effect of this abuse does not just hinge on whether a political
opponent is successfully extradited. In most democracies,
properly functioning judicial systems tend to eventually weed
out the obviously politically motivated extradition request.
However, the alerts can still have devastating consequences.
They prevent travel and lead to unexpected detentions in third
countries. They incur costly legal bills. And they make it
difficult for those listed to conduct banking and other
financial transactions. Moreover, repressive governments use
the very act of being listed that they initiate to tarnish the
personal reputations of those in exile, intimidate their family
members, and confiscate their property and business.
Nadejda Atayeva, whose testimony is in the record, is a
human rights defender with refugee status in France. She
remained on the Red Notice list for over 15 years after she was
accused by the Government of Uzbekistan of an economic crime,
which was her family pointed out corruption in a particular
sector, and later convicted in absentia. This conviction
appears to have been intended to hamper her advocacy work
abroad as a human rights defender.
Journalists and advocacy organizations have spotlighted
many of these abuses, but the continued lack of transparency
makes it difficult to assess the progress of reform efforts.
The TRAP Act would provide much-needed basic data about which
member states issue Notices and in what frequency. It would
shed light on how INTERPOL's own independent oversight board
adjudicates complaints of abuses and which member states are
the most frequent violators. And in turn, this will allow other
member governments, activists, and the media to identify and
track obvious abuses of the international policing network.
Finally, it will help ensure that politically motivated abuse
of INTERPOL is kept in check and deter other authoritarians
from similarly misusing the organization.
Although it may not be realistic for the United States or
any one country to check all of the malevolent transnational
activities of autocrats and their foreign security services,
the TRAP Act would send a powerful signal that autocracies will
not have a free hand to refashion international organizations
and redefine basic human rights standards and critical
protections.
Thank you for your attention.
Mr. Wicker. Well, thank you very much.
And Mr. Schenkkan, we'll continue with you. We appreciate
your attendance.
NATE SCHENKKAN, DIRECTOR FOR SPECIAL RESEARCH, FREEDOM HOUSE
Mr. Schenkkan. Thank you very much. Co-Chairman Wicker and
members of the commission, it's an honor to testify before you
today.
I think Professor Cooley has already provided a summary of
transnational repression and what it is, so let me skip ahead
to the Turkish case, which is the prime example in my
testimony.
I began focusing on this issue, transnational repression,
in my work at Freedom House after the July 2016 coup attempt in
Turkey. In response to that coup attempt, the Turkish
Government embarked on a global campaign against those that it
held responsible, principally members of the Gulen movement.
Using an expansive guilt by association approach, Turkey
designated anyone associated with the movement as part of a
terrorist organization, and aggressively pursued them around
the world. This involved multiple tools. Turkey uploaded tens
of thousands of requests for detention into INTERPOL's systems.
It canceled the passports of thousands of people who were
outside the country. It refused to renew the passports of
others. And it refused to issue passports for some Turkish
children born outside the country, in an effort to get their
parents to return to Turkey so that they could be arrested.
Most strikingly, Turkey physically brought back at least
104 Turkish citizens from 21 countries, according to its own
official statements. At least 30 of those were kidnappings--
citizens taken from abroad without any legal process
whatsoever. People pulled off the streets of foreign cities,
bundled onto private jets linked to Turkey's intelligence
services. In one well-documented case, the kidnapping of six
Turkish citizens from Kosovo, one of the men Turkey took was
the wrong person--a different Turkish citizen with a similar
name. That man remains in prison in Turkey anyway, while the,
quote/unquote, ``right'' man received asylum in Europe.
The Turkish example since 2016 is striking, and useful to
study for several reasons. Because it's so concentrated in
time--this is only in the last 3 years--because it is so
aggressive, and because it uses so many different tactics.
But transnational repression is universal. Freedom House
has just embarked on a new study of transnational repression
that will document its scope and scale around the world since
2014. Data collection is far from complete, but we've already
documented 208 cases of violent transnational repression in the
last 7 years, targeting exiles from 21 countries, and we know
there are hundreds more waiting to be identified.
These documented cases range from Saudi Arabia's murder of
Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul to Azerbaijan's kidnapping of Afqan
Muxtarli in Georgia, to the disappearing of Thai activists from
Laos, to the mass detention and deportation of Uighurs,
Tibetans, and Falun Gong practitioners to China from a range of
countries. Transnational repression occurs in all parts of the
world and affects activists and even apolitical exiles
everywhere they live, including in the United States.
Now let me speak about some recommendations. The political
scientist Yossi Shain, in his book, ``The Frontier of
Loyalty,'' laid out a three-part test for why states would
engage in persecution of exiles. These three parts are the
regime's perception of the threat posed by exiles, a regime's
available options and skills for suppression through coercion,
and a regime's cost-benefit calculations for using coercion.
Regarding the first, authoritarian regimes fundamentally see
their citizens as subjects to be ruled, not voices to be
heeded. Any kind of political engagement is taken as a threat.
We can't change the first part of the equation.
But we can change the second and the third parts. First, we
need to blunt the tools of transnational repression or, in
Shain's vocabulary, weaken the available options and skills
that a regime has. There are several ways to do this. I think
INTERPOL is a necessary focus for this panel, and I'm sure
we'll discuss it widely. The TRAP Act is a welcome step in this
direction. It should help counter INTERPOL abuse in the United
States and perhaps globally if it's able to achieve reforms
within INTERPOL itself.
Another tool of transnational repression to be blunted is
commercially available spyware, which has been deployed against
exiles by countries like Saudi Arabia, China, and others. The
U.N. Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression David Kaye
has called for tighter regulation of targeted surveillance
technology and a moratorium on the export of spyware. There's
new draft U.S. guidance for the export of surveillance
technology prepared by DRL [the State Department's Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor]. That's a welcome step,
placing human rights due diligence at the center of the
guidance. But this guidance must be translated into mandatory
regulations governing these exports, including those that carry
penalties for violations. We cannot rely on industry to self-
regulate in this area.
Second, the U.S. needs to reduce the benefit of engaging in
transnational repression. The best way to do this is to support
targeted diasporas, especially in the United States. I believe
yesterday the Senate passed the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act,
which includes measures to protect the Chinese diaspora. This
is a welcome measure, and I hope it will be reconciled. Freedom
House supports it.
In addition, Congress should pursue legislation to support
all vulnerable diaspora communities in the United States,
including by providing additional resources to strengthen the
ability of the FBI and appropriate U.S. law enforcement to
counter transnational repression campaigns. It should make
resources available to educate local law enforcement and
immigration authorities in parts of the country where there are
high concentrations of vulnerable diasporas.
Outside of the United States, in its democracy promotion
work, the United States can reduce the benefits of
transnational repression by supporting shelter models that
strengthen the resilience of exiled activists and journalists.
Last, the United States should show leadership by providing
safe haven to persecuted individuals. Instead of reducing the
number of refugees the United States accepts, we should
significantly increase it.
Third and finally, the United States needs to raise the
cost of engaging in transnational repression. On the diplomatic
front, we should make a consistent practice of issuing private,
and where necessary public, protests to diplomats and consular
officials who abuse their positions to intimidate, threaten, or
undermine the rights and freedoms of exiles and members of
diasporas in the United States. And we should sanction
individuals responsible for grave human rights violations
against exiles, using the Global Magnitsky Act or other
authorities as appropriate.
Especially where the persecuting state is a U.S. ally,
units and individuals should be scrutinized to ensure they do
not receive security assistance if they're committing human
rights violations. The United States and other democracies have
the ability and the responsibility to blunt the tools of
transnational repression and protect vulnerable exiles.
Thank you for your time and attention, and I look forward
to our discussion.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you very much.
Mr. Min.
BRUNO MIN, SENIOR LEGAL AND POLICY ADVISOR,
FAIR TRIALS
Mr. Min. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to thank the chair and
the co-chair of the commission for this opportunity to speak at
this panel. I'm also very thankful that the commission has
decided to take an interest in what we believe is a very
important matter. INTERPOL is not subject to any formal
external effective oversight, so the oversight of member
countries, and particularly the United States--the largest
state donor financially speaking to INTERPOL--is particularly
helpful. Fair Trials has been campaigning for the past 7 years
or so for the reform of INTERPOL. We believe that INTERPOL
plays a very important role in making the world a safer place,
and the system of Red Notices and diffusions are central to the
fulfillment of that objective.
Just to get the basics right, Red Notices--as quite rightly
pointed out earlier--are electronic alerts circulated through
INTERPOL's systems to seek the location and the arrest of an
individual--a wanted individual--with a view to extradition.
They're often described as international arrest warrants, but
they are not. There is no international legal obligation to act
upon a Red Notice. Diffusions are electronic alerts that are
also circulated through INTERPOL's information system that
carry a request for police cooperation, which can be exactly
the same as a Red Notice--namely, to seek the location and the
arrest of a wanted individual. But the key differences between
Red Notices and diffusions are formality--with diffusions being
less formal than Red Notices--and also the manner in which they
are checked and disseminated, which I will come to a little bit
later.
The big challenge for Fair Trials is that INTERPOL is not
always able to ensure that Red Notices and diffusions comply
with their rules relating to human rights and political
neutrality, as a result of which we get certain states abusing
its systems to target dissidents and others in need of
international protection. Our concerns were outlined in our
2018 report, ``Dismantling the Tools of Oppression,'' \1\ where
we identified that there were serious flaws to INTERPOL's
systems that needed fixing. In summary, those two concerns are,
one, the ways in which INTERPOL reviews Red Notices and
diffusions, both prior to their dissemination and after their
dissemination, and also the ways in which they interpret their
rules relating to human rights and neutrality.
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\1\ https://www.fairtrials.org/publication/dismantling-tools-
oppression-1
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I'd like to emphasize, though, that INTERPOL is fully aware
of these concerns, and they've taken steps to address them
through a set of reforms adopted, probably for the past 5 years
or so. At the moment, I think one of the biggest challenges is
how INTERPOL reviews Red Notices and diffusions prior to and
during circulation.
INTERPOL has a team of about 30-40 staff members in the
general secretariat whose role it is to check Red Notices and
diffusions so they're not violating their rules. There's a big
question about how effective these mechanisms are, primarily
because there are no statistics around them. So we don't know
of over 10,000 new Red Notices per year how many of those Red
Notice requests get refused. Same goes for diffusions as well.
If we even had just very basic data, just a percentage of how
many Red Notices are rejected, that would persuade us to have a
little more confidence that they are doing something.
And the other big challenge is that we simply have no idea
what the procedures are for checking these Red Notice requests.
We don't know, for example, what would trigger INTERPOL to
carry out a more cautious assessment of whether or not a Red
Notice request is compliant with its rules. We also don't know
what kind of information they would consult if they find that a
Red Notice request requires a bit more review. Whatever these
processes are wasn't quite clear from the cases that we see. We
see Red Notices being issued in very clear cases of abuse,
including against refugees who have a very public profile. So
what we can tell is that whatever these systems are, they're
simply not working as well as they should.
And in a way, that's not very surprising, considering
particularly that we have about 30 to 40 staff members at
INTERPOL reviewing over 10,000 new Red Notices per year, and on
top of that about 50,000 diffusions per year as well. You don't
need to do very complicated math to figure out that that's an
enormously difficult task. The other big problem here is about
diffusions as well, which I mentioned are checked in a
different way to Red Notices. The problem is that they are not
subject to the same sort of scrutiny as Red Notices, as a
result of which there is a risk that unchecked data--possibly
very devastating data--can enter into national databases and
stay there. This is what has been causing the very high-profile
arrests of Bill Browder.
For the lack of time, I won't be able to go into too much
detail about the other concerns we had. Just very briefly,
there were lots of concerns about the effectiveness of
INTERPOL's redress mechanism, the Commission for the Control of
INTERPOL's File, or the CCF. In its previous form, the
procedures of the CCF had basically no regard for basic due
process standards, and it was unable to even make binding
decisions, making it pretty ineffective as a redress mechanism.
Fortunately, INTERPOL has taken steps to dramatically improve
the CCF, as a result of which it's a much more fair process,
and it's more independent and more capable of performing its
role. But there are still problems in relation to its
transparency, the fact that it's understaffed and under
resourced. It's worth mentioning that it is not possible to
challenge the CCF's decisions. So if you are affected by an
abusive Red Notice and you don't get the right outcome, then
there is no further recourse.
Finally, Fair Trials also had concerns about the
interpretation of INTERPOL's rules, particularly in relation to
human rights, because there is very little information about
how those rules are interpreted. One policy development, a very
positive development, over the past 5 years is the adoption of
the refugee policy, which aims to protect individuals who have
been granted refugee status under international law. But even
there, although there are many positive things about it, we
find that the scope of that policy is rather limited, and there
are some problems in its effective implementation, given the
first challenge that I talked about: INTERPOL's ability to weed
out bad Red Notice requests.
In terms of our recommendations to member countries, the
main thing that I wanted to say was that INTERPOL has been on a
path of reform, making gradual improvements over the past few
years. It needs encouragement to do that--not only to make sure
that its current reforms are effectively implemented but also
to be encouraged to adopt further reforms to address the rest
of the concerns that remain. The other thing that member
countries, and the United States included, should do, we think,
is to help INTERPOL to do what they're supposed to do--that
might be in relation to its decisionmaking, helping them make
the right decisions in the cases that they see, and also to
alert them of potential patterns of abuse.
A really crucial thing is the lack of funding at INTERPOL
for these very important mechanisms that keep their systems in
check. The Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files and
the specialist team within INTERPOL that reviews Red Notice
requests and diffusions are currently understaffed, in our
opinion, and under resourced. They quite often depend on the
generosity of member states to fund them and resource them. My
other recommendations are outlined in the written briefing that
I've submitted in advance. Of course, I'd be happy to discuss
them in more detail.
Thank you.
Mr. Wicker. We appreciate those recommendations.
And I think we're going to depart at this point from our
assigned procedure. There's been a vote called on the House
floor. And I want to give Mr. Veasey a chance to ask a question
or two before these House members have to beat the clock. So,
Mr. Veasey, you're recognized for questions. And then we'll
take Ms. Grossman's testimony.
HON. MARC VEASEY, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Veasey. Thank you very much. I really had one question.
I would just like to try to get into the mindset of the people
that issue these--is it red flags?--because obviously that
takes away time and resources when they issue these for people
that are just dissenters from very serious violators out there
that could be committing very serious acts like terrorism acts.
What I'm trying to figure out is knowing that they could be
taking away resources from more serious matters, why do they
continue to do that? Obviously if there was a terrorism act
that took place in Turkey that could have been prevented,
because they were just trying to squash dissenters, obviously
you wouldn't want that sort of blood on your hands. So if you
could put me into the mindset of some of the leaders over
there. We, obviously, in the United States, see terrorism as
very serious. We probably place it on probably the highest of
high priority. But maybe for them dissenting is just as big of
a deal as terrorism. Can you just sort of put me into their
mindset?
Mr. Cooley. Sure. Thank you for that question.
I think part of the shift that's happened, especially over
the last 15 years, is looking at the security and insecurity of
their own rule and what are the sources of threat, right? So
one source of threat is, of course, terrorists. In a post-9/11
world--a world of sort of global radicalization, these kinds of
frames are a foremost concern around the world. But what
happened, particularly in the mid-2000s, is that all forms of
domestic opposition started to be recoded as threatening--as
security threats. Security services who had been active in
going after actual terrorist threats and fears of
radicalization, started turning these same surveillance
instruments, these same tools onto also political opponents,
right?
So now we have a broad array of regime opposition that
includes what we would regard possibly as terrorists, as well
as ordinary domestic opponents. In countries like Tajikistan a
political party that as part of the ruling coalition was banned
in 2015 with all of its leadership rebranded terrorists and
going abroad. So I think that's the switch that's happening.
Mr. Schenkkan. If I could just add one point to that, too--
I pretty much agree with what Alex said. The cost is actually
quite low of inputting these requests. In the post-coup
environment in Turkey, what we saw was essentially a batch
upload. If you can imagine, you have a spreadsheet of names.
That spreadsheet could have 20,000 names on it. Once the system
is automated, you can essentially--I'm not speaking about the
actual system--just upload these names and generate requests--
or, seek to generate requests. So the time spent--the effort
spent--is low, because the technology enables you to diffuse
those requests very rapidly.
That's why it's so important to get insight into the
processes themselves and to try to improve the processes,
because that's really a due process question as I hope Bruno
would agree. This is a due process question. How do you examine
what can, in its impacts, have the effect of being an arrest
warrant? That means you need a real process for examining them
and making sure that they're not in violation.
Mr. Wicker. Other questions from either Mr. Veasey or Mr.
Wilson before we turn to Ms. Grossman?
Okay, Ms. Grossman, you're recognized. And I think you're
probably going to talk more about individual examples.
SANDRA A. GROSSMAN, PARTNER, GROSSMAN YOUNG & HAMMOND,
IMMIGRATION LAW, LLC
Ms. Grossman. That's right. As the only U.S. immigration
attorney on this panel, I'm going to really focus on that
topic. In my work as an immigration attorney over the past few
years, I have seen how oppressive regimes are actually
manipulating the U.S. immigration system to persecute political
dissidents seeking refuge in this country. They are utilizing
our justice system to arrest and jail political dissidents. And
the manner in which this is happening is quite clear. Law
enforcement agencies, in particular Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, or ICE, utilize Red Notices to target foreign
nationals, many times asylum seekers, and to detain them and
press for their deportation.
The Department of Justice does not consider a Red Notice to
be sufficient basis for an arrest. It does not meet the
probable cause standard under the Fourth Amendment, and really
offers little assurance into the legitimacy of the allegations
it concerns. Unfortunately, what we're observing in the
immigration field is that ICE is treating many Red Notices as
conclusive evidence of criminality, with consequences on the
basic rights of victims of persecution. Even worse, this blind
acceptance of an INTERPOL communication without scrutiny can,
and often does, turn ICE officials and our own immigration
judges into unwitting agents of repressive regimes.
I'd like to share with you some real-life examples of
INTERPOL abuse that are currently processing through our
immigration system. My client, a citizen of Russia, entered the
U.S. with a valid visa and applied for asylum before the U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services [USCIS]. His persecution
claim is based on spurious and persecutory tax fraud charges
lodged against him by the same tax office that prosecuted
Sergei Magnitsky. He appeared for what was supposed to be a
non-adversarial asylum interview before USCIS. Instead, ICE
arrived at the interview and detained him. He spent 4 months in
jail before being released on a very high bond.
INTERPOL actually canceled the Red Notice, recognizing its
illegitimacy. However, my client and his family had already
suffered the worst effects of the Red Notice through the U.S.
immigration system. Years later, his case continues to languish
in U.S. immigration court. We filed a Freedom of Information
Act request in his case, which revealed that ICE categorized my
client as a danger to the community and a flight risk based on
nothing more than the existence of the Red Notice. So in this
very specific example, ICE agents and the immigration courts
became tools in advancing bogus criminal allegations made by an
autocratic government. There are many, many more examples.
In another case, a U.S. citizen filed to obtain lawful
permanent residency for her father, a citizen of Armenia. Her
father was the subject of a Red Notice that arose from a
private business dispute with corrupt Armenian officials. ICE
went to his home and detained him. The immigration judge denied
a request to lower an extremely high bond amount, and this was
in spite of extensive ties with U.S. citizen family members and
his eligibility for permanent residence. The sole stated reason
for refusing to lower the bond amount was the existence of the
INTERPOL Red Notice. In fact, a Red Notice actually decreases
flight risk and makes travel a lot more difficult.
Nevertheless, DHS officials and immigration judges alike
consistently miss this point, all at the expense of the liberty
of persecuted persons, like my Armenian and Russian clients.
I'd also like to point out that a recent survey issued by
the American Immigration Lawyers Association--which has more
than 16,000 members--uncovered many more similar examples of
INTERPOL abuse in the United States. As my colleagues here have
testified today, INTERPOL does serve a good purpose, and the
built-in human rights protections found in the constitution and
subsidiary rules are sound. They only work if they are properly
applied.
My recommendation is that part of holding INTERPOL and the
Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files to a higher
standard is requiring them to have greater transparency.
Jurisprudence and reports must be published, and the
organization must allow for more access to information and
opportunities for advocacy, especially for persons who allege
INTERPOL abuse. Within our own borders, we must do a better job
at ensuring that immigration officials understand that the mere
existence of a Red Notice, especially when it concerns an
asylum seeker or affects the interests of U.S. citizens or
lawful permanent residents, cannot be considered conclusive
evidence of criminality.
If the Transnational Repression Accountability and
Prevention Act accomplishes even some of these goals, it will
be a much-needed first step to address the problem of INTERPOL
abuse and to prevent our justice and immigration from being
further manipulated by autocratic regimes.
Thank you.
Mr. Wicker. Well, thank you very much to all four of you
for your excellent testimony.
Who can tell us how much the United States donates to
INTERPOL each year?
Mr. Min. I'm afraid I don't have the exact statistics,
although there might be other people in the room who might be
able to get the statistics for you. The United States, at least
among states donors, is easily the largest donor to INTERPOL.
But I don't have the statistics.
Mr. Wicker. Well, try to get that to us.
Ms. Grossman. I believe I do, sir.
Mr. Wicker. Okay, yes.
Ms. Grossman. This is, in part, thanks to the research of
Dr. Ted Bromund. It looks like the United States contributed
19.4 percent in 2019, 11 million euros. And this is compared to
Japan, which is second, who contributed 6 million euros. And
China third, Russia, then Turkey. The United States is, by far,
the greatest statutory contributor to INTERPOL.
Mr. Wicker. When was INTERPOL formed?
Mr. Min. I believe INTERPOL was formed around, I think, the
1930s. It's often criticized for the fact that I think there
was German involvement or German leadership in the creation of
INTERPOL at the time. But that's the historic origin of the
organization. I think it's evolved considerably since then,
obviously. It started very much, I think, like a
nongovernmental organization, a policeman's club. And now it's
a much more formal entity.
Mr. Wicker. Was it abused during the run-up to Nazism in
Germany?
Mr. Min. I don't know about that. What we would say is that
the phenomenon of Red Notices, and diffusions, and other
INTERPOL tools being misused at this scale is a relatively new
phenomenon. Obviously Red Notices have been around for decades.
But it's relatively recent that they can be circulated with
this much ease. And that's primarily due to technological
developments, first of all, and also the growing understanding
amongst states that international cooperation on police matters
is absolutely crucial these days, given the global nature of
security threats and crime.
Mr. Wicker. No question, it's a vital tool. No question
it's being abused on a large scale.
Who was giving--I'm jotting notes here and trying to juggle
members who had to go vote. Who was giving us information--was
it you, Mr. Min--about the number of Red Notices per year and
the number of diffusions per year, in the entirety of INTERPOL?
Mr. Min. Yes, I think the latest statistics were something
on the region of around 13,000 or 14,000 new Red Notices per
year, and about 50,000 new diffusions per year. And those, I
think, are just diffusions that call on the location and the
arrest of individuals. I think it's worth mentioning at this
point that the number of new diffusions issued jumped
dramatically in the past couple of years. I think INTERPOL
would attribute that primarily to the increasing use of their
systems for foreign terrorist fighter alerts. But there are
concerns that as there are better safeguards that prevent the
misuse of Red Notices, countries are turning to diffusions
instead, which have a less stringent checking mechanism.
Mr. Wicker. Okay, well, tell us about that. Let's give the
commission and our friends listening worldwide those
differences. When would you--and you want to jump in, Mr.
Schenkkan--when would a country decide to go through the more
difficult procedure of a Red Notice? What does that entail? And
then why is a diffusion easier?
Mr. Schenkkan. I'll also defer, I think, to Bruno and to
Sandra Grossman on these matters. But I would say that the
concern that observers of INTERPOL have is that the diffusion
process essentially sends the communication directly. So
INTERPOL is acting as a middleman, but without necessarily a
process by which that diffusion is reviewed.
Mr. Wicker. So they don't vet the diffusion at----
Mr. Schenkkan. At the moment of submission.
Mr. Min. Right. I mean, there's some unclarity on this. And
what would be ideal would be someone from INTERPOL to explain
that to us in that much more detail.
So the reason why countries would use Red Notices instead
of diffusions is that Red Notices are meant to have a higher
injunctive value. Red Notices are meant to be more serious. And
that's the reason why they use that, whereas diffusions are
meant to be more informal kind of casual variants, I suppose,
in lots of situations.
So in terms of how the two are different in terms of how
they're being checked, with Red Notices the information that
eventually gets uploaded onto Red Notices doesn't become
visible to other member countries until the request for the Red
Notice is checked. So the country would send the request to
INTERPOL's general secretariat saying that they want to have a
Red Notice disseminated and providing all the details. That
would be checked by INTERPOL. And then only if it's found to be
compliant would that Red Notice be disseminated to all the
member countries.
Whereas with diffusions, diffusions start their lives off
pretty much like emails--like normal electronic communications
between member countries of INTERPOL. And it is only after--
when that information is sent out that INTERPOL is able to
review that information. And only after it has done that is it
able to validate that communication as a valid diffusion.
Ms. Grossman. And I'd just like to point out, the
organization is supposed to properly vet Red Notice requests
before they are sent out. The organization has very sound rules
in its constitution: the principle of neutrality, the idea that
any request by a member state has to comply with the spirit of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
But what's nebulous in these cases is exactly how INTERPOL
is going about the process of making sure that these requests
comply with the rules. And clearly there are some significant
gaps there that are allowing some of these requests to be
emitted. And then what makes the situation worse is that the
mechanisms for then addressing illegitimate requests is
extremely lengthy, inefficient. There's very little access for
information. You know, you can write to the Commission for the
Control of INTERPOL's Files to get a review of your case but,
as someone else here pointed out, there is no appeal. Sometimes
you're not able to learn exactly the details of the allegation.
So it's a very difficult process that leaves victims with
little opportunity for redress.
Mr. Wicker. Mr. Min, on this CCF--that stands for
Commission for the Control of Files--it's the body which
handles requests from individuals seeking access to or removal
of information from INTERPOL's files--how well is this
commission staffed? How big is this commission? How many
members and how many staff?
Mr. Min. So the commission is structured in a way that it's
divided into two chambers. One deals with kind of data
protection issues, and the other deals with complaints. I think
the division is three-four. So there are four, I think,
commissioners, I think, in the complaints chamber, if that's
right?
Ms. Grossman. There's three commissioners in the
supervisory and advisory chamber, and then there's five----
Mr. Min. Five, sorry. Thank you. And they sit a few times a
year to decide on requests and complaints. But they work with a
team of, I think, around a dozen people. There's like a
secretariat for the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's
Files, who are there full time. And they're the ones who really
do most of the leg work. But even then, I mean, I think what we
hear from them, from speaking to the Commission for the Control
of INTERPOL's Files, is that there's always a big challenge in
terms of sifting through all these requests with the limited
funding and staff resources that they have. So it was very
disappointing that in last year's budget for INTERPOL it seemed
as though the staffing had increased by one, but the funding
for the CCF had actually decreased.
Mr. Wicker. Where is it housed?
Mr. Min. It's in Lyon. It's basically next to INTERPOL.
Mr. Wicker. In the most celebrated case that I know of, the
case of Bill Browder, how is it that there's just not a flag
anytime the Russian Federation submits a Red Notice on Bill
Browder, that this is probably bogus and it's probably just a
rehashing of what's already been determined to be invalid? Who
wants to try that?
Mr. Min. If I can just jump in there as well, I think the
main issue about Mr. Browder's case is that these are
diffusions. And for the reasons that we mentioned earlier,
diffusions are notoriously difficult to check for INTERPOL,
because the information that forms the basis of diffusions are
sent out directly between states. The real problem, I think, is
that we can always delete Red Notices and diffusions after
they've been disseminated through the Commission for the
Control of INTERPOL's Files, or whatever other means.
But the frank reality is that in the policing context, I'd
be very surprised if data was ever really deleted. The data
that's being circulated via and on INTERPOL's systems is quite
often transferred into domestic databases. And INTERPOL might,
for reasons that a Red Notice or a diffusion is incompliant
with its rules, delete that from their databases and ask other
countries to delete copies of that information from their
domestic databases, but there's a big problem with compliance.
And it was quite telling last year, I think, a question was
asked in the German Bundestag about how often the German police
complied with INTERPOL's requests to delete Red Notices and
diffusions. The response that came back was that they delete
the vast majority, but they don't delete all of them. So given
that Germany's been particularly vocal about misuse of
INTERPOL, we found that quite interesting and surprising.
Mr. Wicker. Let me just ask this--and unfortunately they
tell me there's a car waiting for me outside at 11:30 to take
me to another meeting, so we're scheduled way too tight for
this important matter, and I apologize for that--is there
anything in the constitution or bylaws or procedures of
INTERPOL to stop resubmitting these Notices and diffusions? Is
there any sanctions or penalties?
Yes, ma'am, Ms. Grossman?
Ms. Grossman. If I may, Senator Wicker, there is a
possibility within INTERPOL to make preventative requests. And
we have done that in cases where there are blatant human rights
abuses. And also I'd like to point out that in the Bill Browder
case INTERPOL did stop issuing diffusions and Red Notices
against him in recognition of the illegitimacy of those
requests from Russia. So there are some mechanisms where one is
able to make this kind of a request. The issue is too that
INTERPOL has very stringent rules on admissibility. It's an
organization that is built to respond to the requests of member
states for law enforcement purposes. So when you as an
individual are arguing that you are a victim of human rights
abuses, you have to show that your request is admissible. And
you have to know that, in fact, you are included on INTERPOL
databases already. So there again, while there are avenues for
redress, they are difficult to access.
Mr. Min. On the point about how they're able to prevent
repeated cases of abuse on exactly the same case, we haven't
had a very convincing, in my opinion, answer from INTERPOL as
to how they do that. We've been given assurance that once a Red
Notice, for example, has been found to be incompliant with its
rules, there are systems to make sure that repeat attempts of
Red Notice requests are refused because, again, there's a
question about diffusions, which are not circulated in the same
manner.
But we have seen at least one example of that system not
working. And that was about 2, 3 years ago, where we had one
individual who claimed asylum from a Latin American country.
And once she did that, and she got her refugee status, she
contacted INTERPOL immediately to say: `I'm very concerned that
I might get a Red Notice against me. This is proof of my
refugee status. Could you please block any attempts at getting
a Red Notice?' That didn't work, and she was arrested on the
basis of a Red Notice in another Latin American country within
a matter of months.
So there is a big question about how efficiently that
system works. In terms of what can be done in terms of repeat
offenders--as in, the repeat offending countries. It's well
within INTERPOL's functions to restrict access to its databases
to countries that are repeat offenders. My understanding is
that that doesn't happen that often. We don't know of any kind
of specific examples of that being done. And this is partly to
do with them being a membership organization and being
sensitive to the opinions of other member countries, perhaps.
Mr. Wicker. Mr. Cooley--really I'm going to be chastised if
I don't make this next meeting--Mr. Schenkkan made specific
recommendations. Is he absolutely right-on on all of them? Do
you support wholeheartedly what he had to say, or would you
make any modifications or offer some advice to us? And then
I'll ask the other two also.
Mr. Cooley. No, on the specific recommendations I would
wholeheartedly support those.
My final comment would be a general one, which is many of
these organizations that the commission deals with on the
international, regional front, the overall change in the
international context has also changed authoritarians'
calculations. There's a certain sense that there's a good-faith
nature to the protections that are in INTERPOL that we're not
going to abuse them for these sort of constitutional reasons.
Once that good faith is no longer there, then there are all
sorts of manners in which these safeguards and protections
within the DNA of these organizations can be twisted and
manipulated. So that's just my word of warning.
Mr. Wicker. Mr. Min? Were those good recommendations?
Mr. Min. Mr. Schenkkan's recommendations?
Mr. Wicker. Yes.
Mr. Min. I do agree with Mr. Schenkkan's recommendations,
yes.
Mr. Wicker. Okay.
Ms. Grossman. I agree with them as well. I would like to
point out just one addition to your question about how much the
United States contributes. And what I cited to you were the
statutory contributions. It also makes additional contributions
on a per project basis to INTERPOL's trust fund and special
account. So I do have statistics from 2017. The U.S. Department
of State supported projects through INTERPOL with a total value
of 2.6 million euros. And then there are other projects,
apparently memoranda of understanding with the FBI, which
result in payments of unspecified amounts to INTERPOL. So we're
looking at at least 13 million euros in U.S. statutory and
project contributions in 2017.
So the United States has the possibility to influence what
happens in this organization and to advocate that the
organization utilize its best efforts to apply the rules that
it has in the constitution and in its subsidiary rules.
Mr. Wicker. And I hope this hearing provides a bit of a
push, among others, that need to be made in that regard. Your
testimony is that different organs of the U.S. Government view
these Notices and diffusions different?
Ms. Grossman. Yes, Senator. My testimony is centered around
the fact that the U.S. Department of Justice has a very clear
policy that Red Notices do not meet our minimum standards for
arrest under our Constitution. Nevertheless, that message isn't
getting across to decisionmakers in our immigration system who
are using Red Notices to target foreign nationals in the United
States. Many times these individuals are fleeing persecution in
their home countries.
Mr. Wicker. Good information to have and something for us
to follow up on.
Let me just observe that it's--this hearing is about a
broad tool--about a broad subject. And that's transnational
repression. My questions have centered in on INTERPOL, because
it's something that's so visible and so egregious, that we have
so many examples of. It seems that we come down to the real
problem here and that is that there are a large number of
members of INTERPOL, including some of our allies, who are
frankly international scofflaws. And to the extent that we have
to defer to these governments who take at face value what they
send to us, that has become a real problem, and a real abuse.
I, for one, am determined to be part of a solution to getting
to the bottom of this and reversing that.
Thank you very much for being here. Thanks to all of you
for attending and for, I hope, thousands and thousands of
people who are participating with us on livestream today.
Thank you and, unfortunately, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the hearing ended.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Roger F. Wicker, Co-Chairman, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe
This hearing of the Helsinki Commission will come to order.
Good morning. Welcome to this hearing on ``Tools of
Transnational Repression: How Autocrats Punish Dissent
Overseas.''
We have assembled an expert panel to probe how autocratic
states project repressive force beyond their borders to silence
dissidents, human rights defenders, journalists, and other
perceived enemies overseas.
Autocrats today have access to a range of tools to extend
their reach by thousands of miles, sometimes in fractions of a
second. Some schemes rely on 21st century technologies to hack,
surveil, and intimidate targets, while others use blunter
tactics such as extortion, abduction, and assassination.
This practice of transnational repression constitutes a
wholesale assault on the rule of law internationally. It
requires the attention of all democratic nations. This
Commission is particularly concerned by the politically-
motivated abuse of INTERPOL by autocratic states wishing to
harass and detain their opponents overseas, often in the hopes
of trying them on bogus criminal charges.
INTERPOL is a legitimate instrument for international law
enforcement cooperation, linking the law enforcement arms of
its 194 member countries through a global communications and
database network. The United States relies on INTERPOL systems
daily to bring criminals to justice and foil threats to global
security. As with the UN, however, INTERPOL's broad membership
leaves it open to manipulation by authoritarians.
Repressive regimes have seized on INTERPOL's potent tools
to harass and detain their perceived enemies anywhere in the
world. INTERPOL Red Notices and Diffusions are among the most
commonly abused instruments, as they constitute international
requests for detention and extradition.
The Helsinki Commission regularly receives reports from
dissidents, journalists, and human rights defenders across the
OSCE region who are the targets of INTERPOL Notices or
Diffusions issued by autocratic states on trumped up charges.
Perhaps the most prominent case is that of outspoken
Kremlin critic Bill Browder. After his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky
was murdered by Russian thugs for exposing state-sponsored
corruption, Mr. Browder emerged as a champion of transparency
and accountability for President Putin's misrule. In response,
the Kremlin embarked on a more than decade-long campaign to
silence him.
To date, Russia has issued at least eight politically-
motivated Diffusions against Mr. Browder, and yet--to our
knowledge--INTERPOL has not penalized Russia in any way to
punish or deter this abuse. To the contrary, Russia felt
comfortable enough in its position in the organization to have
proposed a leading candidate for the Presidency of INTERPOL
last fall. At the time, I joined with fellow Helsinki
Commissioners Shaheen and Rubio and Senator Coons to denounce
the Russian candidacy, which was ultimately defeated after an
outcry from the U.S. and our European allies.
Of course, Mr. Browder is one victim--and Russia one
abuser--among many. Ahead of this hearing, the Helsinki
Commission received statements from individuals from China,
Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan who have been targeted by
authorities using INTERPOL--without objection, I request that
these be entered into the record of this hearing.
The Helsinki Commission is taking action to address these
assaults on the rule of law. Chairman Alcee Hastings and I are
preparing to introduce bipartisan legislation in the House and
Senate to tackle the abuse of INTERPOL by autocrats. The
Transnational Repression Accountability and Prevention Act will
lay out priorities for U.S. engagement with INTERPOL,
encourages executive branch agencies to improve processes for
responding to politically-motivated INTERPOL notices, and
codifies strict limits on how INTERPOL communications can be
used by U.S. authorities against individuals in our country. In
addition, this legislation will require the State Department to
report on trends in transnational repression in its annual
human rights report.
The U.S. has long been a champion of reform and good
governance within INTERPOL. Since 2016, INTERPOL--with U.S.
support--has enhanced vetting of Notices and Diffusions,
created special protections for refugees, instituted greater
transparency regarding its adjudication of complaints from
victims, made rulings on complaints binding, and begun
reviewing thousands of longstanding Notices and Diffusions. But
more remains to be done. The organization is in dire need of
greater transparency, and countries should face consequences--
including being denied leadership positions--for repeated
abuses.
Our witnesses this morning will provide expert testimony on
the scale of this problem and policy recommendations to address
it. Before I introduce them, however, I would like to recognize
other commissioners for opening statements.
Now to our witnesses:
First, we will hear from Alexander Cooley, a political
science professor at Barnard College and director of Columbia
University's Harriman Institute. Professor Cooley wrote the
book on extra-territorial authoritarian practices: Dictators
without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia, which was co-
authored with John Heathershaw, and published in 2017. Drawing
on his scholarly work, Professor Cooley will explain the
origins, scope, and trajectory of transnational repression.
Next, Nate Schenkkan will provide concrete examples of
these authoritarian practices based on his work as director of
special research at Freedom House.
Our third witness, Bruno Min, is senior legal and policy
advisor at Fair Trials, an international non-profit that
monitors criminal justice standards around the world. Mr. Min
will present his experience leading Fair Trials' advocacy
relating to INTERPOL and other examples of cross-border justice
and discrimination.
Finally, we will hear from Sandra A. Grossman, an
immigration lawyer and founding partner of Grossman Young &
Hammond, where she has honed her expertise in complex and
sensitive immigration issues, often involving clients targeted
by politically-motivated INTERPOL communications.
I will refer you to the materials in your folders for our
witnesses' full bios. I look forward to their testimonies and
hereby invite Professor Cooley to begin his testimony.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Alcee L. Hastings, Chairman, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe
The TRAP Act is aimed in part at addressing the plight of
individuals such as Russian asylum seeker Alexey Kharis, whose
harrowing tale of mistreatment at the hands of Russian and U.S.
authorities has been reported in The Atlantic and New York
Times. Mr. Kharis submitted testimony to the Helsinki
Commission for this hearing, which I request be included in the
record, without objection.
A businessman and father of two, Mr. Kharis relocated to
the U.S. five years ago after coming under government pressure
in Russia to testify against a whistleblower who had revealed
government corruption in a business venture. Fleeing government
threats and politically-motivated charges of financial crimes
in Vladivostok, Mr. Kharis landed in California on a valid
visa. Despite his attempts to clear his name in Russia,
authorities there persisted and ultimately issued an INTERPOL
Red Notice seeking his removal from the United States to face
trial.
In 2016, Mr. Kharis applied for asylum, citing in part the
Russian Red Notice. Unbeknownst to him, however, U.S.
immigration authorities had already used that very Red Notice
as justification to revoke his visa. When Mr. Kharis appeared
in person to receive his asylum decision the following year,
ICE officers instead arrested him and placed him in removal
proceedings that risked sending him back to face the injustice
of Russia's legal system.
Mr. Kharis spent the next 15 months in detention pleading
his innocence. In his testimony to the Commission, Mr. Kharis
recounts: ``I ended up having to take my case to a federal
court, which ordered the immigration judge to consider evidence
that `Russia is a frequent abuser of INTERPOL's lax procedural
checks to obtaining a Red Notice,' and that the Department of
Justice does not consider INTERPOL Red Notices, on their own,
as a basis for arrest.'' Mr. Kharis was finally released in
November 2018 and earlier this year had his asylum denial
overturned. Nevertheless, he is required to wear an ankle
monitor and is still awaiting a final asylum decision.
Mr. Kharis' experience demonstrates the need for
Congressional action to tackle autocratic abuse of INTERPOL. We
cannot allow autocratic regimes to manipulate the U.S. justice
system to carry out reprisals against their political
opponents. Additionally, repressive regimes must face real
costs for abusing legitimate international law enforcement
mechanisms, such as INTERPOL. INTERPOL abuse will not stop
until it is punished.
Dolkun Isa
Prepared Statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Ranking Member,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
I would like to thank Chairman Hastings and Co-Chairman
Wicker for their leadership of the Helsinki Commission and for
convening this hearing on a topic of tremendous importance to
all of us who recognize the rule of law as a pillar of free,
peaceful, and just democratic societies.
While so many Americans enjoy the freedom to speak and
write freely--and critically--about their government, elsewhere
in the world millions live in conditions under which voicing
any public opposition to political forces is a life-threatening
activity.
Autocrats often go to great lengths to stifle dissent. They
shut down access to the internet and communication channels,
they ban free and independent media, employ propaganda to prop
up their cult of personality and nationalism, and to silence
dissenting voices.
They often scapegoat and demonize vulnerable minorities,
preying on the fears of the masses to build popular support.
Autocrats also weaken the checks and balances on government
power needed to preserve human rights and the rule of law, such
as an independent judiciary. They often crack down on civil
society groups and NGOs by limiting their ability to operate in
their country.
As evidenced from the horrific crisis in Venezuela, to the
targeting of indigenous environmental advocate Berta Caceras in
Honduras, to the crackdown and deadly targeting of journalists
from Brazil--to the Philippines--to India--to the Gambia, and
indeed across the world, autocratic leaders will stop at
nothing perpetuating their own power by any means necessary.
Nor do autocrats confine intimidation and violence against
dissenters to their countries' borders; more and more we see
regimes abusing the tools of international diplomacy and law
enforcement to silence those who dare to speak against them.
Next month we will mark the one-year anniversary of the
assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi
Consulate in Istanbul. This politically motivated killing by a
team of Saudi regime henchmen underscores the motivation that
authoritarian governments have to silence their critics
anywhere in the world and the difficulty we face in bringing
the perpetrators and masterminds of such crimes to justice.
Khashoggi's killing revealed the confidence of senior Saudi
officials who felt they could export Saudi-style repression to
a European nation with impunity.
In response to Khashoggi's murder, I have called for steps
to hold the regime accountable. Over the past year, I pressed
the Trump Administration to apply Global Magnitsky sanctions to
the masterminds of Khashoggi's murder--not just its
implementers. Although I welcomed the sanctioning of 17
conspirators last year, I remain dismayed by the
Administration's refusal to respond--as required by law--to
Congressional inquiries concerning the complicity of senior
Saudi officials, including Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman.
While Turkey has led international calls for Saudi
accountability in the case of Jamal Khashoggi, President
Erdogan has undertaken his own campaign against his political
opponents overseas.
Just last month, Turkish officials confirmed that its
intelligence forces abducted a suspected follower of Turkish
religious leader Fethullah Gulen from Malaysia and rendered him
to Turkey to face terrorism charges. Our witness this morning,
Nate Schenkkan, has tracked this phenomenon closely, finding
open source evidence of such abductions in at least three
countries.
Describing the broader scale of Turkey's global dragnet in
Foreign Affairs last year, Mr. Schenkkan wrote that ``In at
least 46 countries across four continents, Turkey has pursued
an aggressive policy to silence its perceived enemies and has
allegedly used INTERPOL as a political tool to target its
opponents.''
Ahead of today's hearing, the Helsinki Commission received
a harrowing statement from a victim of Turkey's abuse of
INTERPOL: veteran Turkish journalist Ilhan Tanir. Mr. Chairman,
I request that Mr. Tanir's statement be entered in the record.
I echo Co-Chairman Wicker's concerns about Russia's
repeated targeting of Bill Browder using INTERPOL Diffusions,
most recently earlier this year. How many times will Russia be
allowed to drag Mr. Browder into a fight to clear his name?
Accountability and deterrence are our most potent tools in
resisting the spread of authoritarian lawlessness across
borders. This is why I led the fight for the original Magnitsky
Act and championed its worldwide expansion under Global
Magnitsky.
This November 16th marks the 10th anniversary of the
suspicious death of Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison
following 11 months in custody. Magnitsky, a tax attorney, drew
attention to large-scale theft from the Russian state, and was
jailed as a result. As Putin said dismissively of his death at
the time: ``Must we make a story out of each and every case?''
To those who suffer under repressive efforts to silence their
voices, we must. The law I sponsored bearing Magnitsky's name
was passed in 2012, and its global counterpart was enacted in
2016. Since the ratification of these laws, we have made 113
designations worldwide based on allegations of corruption and
gross human rights abuses. I look forward to the testimony of
our witnesses about the scope of transnational repression and
recommendations for how to improve U.S. policy responses to
this growing threat.
Prepared Statement of Alexander Cooley, Director of the Harriman
Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe,
Columbia University and Claire Tow
Professor of Political Science, Barnard College
Chairman Hastings, Co-Chairman Wicker and Members of the
Commission,
Thank you for inviting me to testify about the topic of
transnational repression as part of the hearing on reforming
INTERPOL. I request that my written testimony be admitted into
the record.
My aim today is to explain why autocrats are increasingly
projecting their reach overseas and highlight how INTERPOL has
become a weapon in their efforts to target exiled political
opponents. The TRAP Act is a critical tool to safeguard human
rights in the international policing organization and to
provide principled leadership that counters alarming
transnational trends.
What is Transnational Repression?
By ``transnational repression'' I refer to the targeting of
co-national political opponents, civil society advocates, non-
pliant business community members and journalists who reside
abroad by governments and their internal security and
intelligence services.
These extraterritorial acts of repression include, but may
not be limited to:
LCoercive acts against political exiles by
security services and their agents, including assassination
attempts, disappearances, forced abductions and renditions back
to the home country.
LActive monitoring, infiltration and disruption of
diaspora and exile communities abroad.
LHarassment and intimidation of an exiled
political opponent's family members in the home state in order
to deter political activities abroad.
LRestricting overseas travel and professional
activities.
LCooperation between the security services of a
host and sending country to deny exiles due process and/or
bypass legal proceedings that would determine eligibility for
political asylum.
Transnational repression is certainly not new. Dictators
across the globe historically have sought to extend their reach
by targeting political opponents abroad--for example, following
the 1917 revolution, Soviet security services were tasked with
hunting down political exiles and emigres, including the
operation, ordered by Stalin, that in 1940 assassinated Leon
Trotsky in Mexico City. \1\ Cooperation among authoritarian
security services also has precedent, most notably the
Operation Condor network under which six Latin American
dictatorships in the 1970's targeted a common list of
communists and political opponents throughout the continent.
\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, The Compatriots: The Brutal
and Chaotic History of Russia's Exiles: Emigres, and Agents Abroad
(Public Affairs, 2019).
\2\ Patrice J. McSherry, Predatory States: Operation Condor and
Covert War in Latin America (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But the rise of this new wave of transnational repression--
through the 2000's and 2010's--within the era of globalization
does have some distinctive drivers and new dynamics.
Characteristics of Today's Transnational Repression: Exiles,
Diasporas and IT
First, transnational repression is an outcome of the recent
global backlash against democratization. \3\ The democratic
optimism of the 1990's and early 2000's, when it appeared that
democratic norms and practices were spreading irreversibly
worldwide, has given way to the emergence of a more aggressive
and savvier breed of autocrat. The so-called Color Revolutions
of the mid-2000's in Eurasia and the Arab Spring in the Middle
East have prompted authoritarians to reframe democratic
opponents, civil society activists and even journalists as
security threats intent on destabilizing and disrupting their
autocratic rule. As political opponents flee these crackdowns,
autocrats now aggressively pursue these exiles overseas in an
attempt to deny them safe spaces from which they can organize,
broadcast oppositional media and question their home
government's legitimacy. Emboldened autocrats have taken
advantage of overly broad counterterrorism and counterextremism
measures to rebrand exiled political opponents as extremists,
while dozens of countries have introduced new restrictions on
the scope of activities and the foreign funding sources of
civil society organizations, \4\ such as Russia's ``Foreign
Agents'' (2012) and ``Undesirable Organizations'' (2015) laws.
\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, and Christopher Walker, eds.
Authoritarianism goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy (Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2016).
\4\ International Center for Non-Profit Law, ``Civic Freedom
Monitor: Russia.'' At: http://www.icnl.org/research/monitor/russia.html
\5\ Darin Christensen and Jeremy M. Weinstein. ``Defunding
Dissent: Restrictions on Aid to NGOs.'' Journal of Democracy 24, no. 2
(2013): 77-91.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second, globalization has created new diaspora communities
of economic migrants. For example, since the early 2000's the
authoritarian post-Soviet Central Asian states have sent
millions of migrants to Russia. Though at first they may not be
politically active in the affairs of their home states, over
time and as they vie for protections, social rights and/or
become radicalized, these communities are perceived as
threatening by authoritarian regimes. Cheap international
transportation links and low-cost communications technologies
allow for regular contacts and the transmission of information,
ideas and values between economic diaspora and their home
countries. Uzbekistan's former strongman President Islam
Karimov, fearing their radicalization, viewed these diasporas
with great suspicion, even as his security services cooperated
with Russian counterparts to monitor them. Home countries may
also actively exploit and intimidate their diasporas to ensure
political loyalty and cultivate a network of embedded
informants. For example, in Africa, the Eritrean government,
with a large diaspora population in Europe and North America,
has aggressively collected a so-called ``diaspora tax,'' using
the threat of withholding legal services as leverage in their
collection efforts. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Nicole Hirt, and Abdulkader Mohammad. ``By Way of Patriotism,
Coercion, or Instrumentalization: How the Eritrean Regime Makes Use of
the Diaspora to Stabilize its Rule.'' Globalizations 15, no. 2 (2018):
232-247.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Third, the rise of new digital and information
technologies--including social media--offers new tools to the
security services of authoritarians to monitor, survey and
infiltrate beyond borders. Historically, information
technologies were viewed as inherent facilitators of free
speech and activism across borders. This assumption was
reinforced by the important role played by social media in
networking and organizing activist street protests during the
Arab Spring of 2011-2012. However, authoritarians have
responded by extending their control of the information space
beyond their territorial borders and into transnational spaces
used for anti-regime activities. Sociologist Dana Moss has
shown how the Syrian government used new technological tools to
survey the online communications and social media profiles of
activist exiles in the United States and United Kingdom,
disrupt and damage online platforms and anti-government
websites, and intimidate outspoken regime critics with
electronic messages and the collection of their personal
information. \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Dana Moss, ``The Ties that Bind: Internet Communication
Technologies, Networked Authoritarianism, and `Voice' in the Syrian
Diaspora.'' Globalizations 15, no. 2 (2018): 265-282.
Authoritarian Cooperation, Learning and the Breakdown of
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Democratic Norms
New transnational repression is also taking place more
openly in an international environment where liberal democratic
norms are weakening. Autocrats are actively cooperating with
one another and learning how to successfully repurpose
international institutions to avoid international scrutiny and
accountability for human rights abuses.
Some of this authoritarian cooperation has been formalized
within international and regional organizations. For example,
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)--comprised of
China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
and, since 2017, India and Pakistan--maintains a common
blacklist of individuals and organization under the auspices of
its Regional Anti-
Terrorism Structure (RATS). Though the list is officially meant
to target the ``three evils'' of extremism, terrorism, and
separatism, in practice human rights organizations have noted
that member country regimes use the SCO blacklist to deny each
other's political exiles and regime opponents regional safe
harbor and asylum. \8\ In just one decade, the list of
blacklisted individuals and organizations has exploded--from 15
organizations and 400 individuals in 2006, to 42 organizations
and 1,100 in 2010, to 69 organizations and 2,500 individuals
2016--while courts in member countries--such as Kazakhstan--
have cited the SCO Treaty as the legal basis for extraditing
political asylum-seekers and exiles back to countries that
routinely practice torture. \9\ A former U.N. special
rapporteur on Counterterrorism and Human Rights publicly voiced
concern about the organization's overly broad definition of the
``three evils,'' its practice of unconditional extradition, and
its opaque data-sharing and classification practices. \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ International Federation for Human Rights, ``The Shanghai
Cooperation Organization: A Vehicle for Human Rights Violations.''
Paris: 2013. At: https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/sco_report.pdf; and Human
Rights in China, ``Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights: The Impact of
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.'' New York, March 2011. At:
https://www.hrichina.org/en/publications/hric-report/counter-terrorism-
and-human-rights-impact-shanghai-cooperation-organization
\9\ Alexander Cooley and Matthew Schaaf, ``Grounding the Backlash:
Regional Security Treaties, Counternorms, and Human Rights in
Eurasia.'' In Stephen Hopgood, Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri, eds.
Human Rights Futures (Cambridge University Press, 2017): 175-78.
\10\ Martin Scheinin, Testimony to the Tom Lantos Human Rights
Commission of the United States House of Representatives. 15 April
2011. At: https://humanrightscommission.house.gov/sites/
humanrightscommission.house.gov/files/documents/
Testimony%20Scheinin%20120411.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authoritarians and their security services are also
informally cooperating and emulating one another's successful
repressive tactics. Over the last few years, China has
pressured governments as far afield as Egypt, Cambodia, Kenya
and Thailand to deport asylum-seeking Uighurs. At the same
time, as part of an aggressive global anti-corruption campaign,
China has sent operatives overseas to harass economic
fugitives, while pressuring their family members back in China
to persuade them to return. \11\ As you will hear in more
detail, Turkey has conducted overseas security operations
against regime opponents in Kosovo and attempted, with mixed
success, to leverage its economic and cultural ties to the
Central Asian states to demand the closure of Gulen-affiliated
schools and the extradition of anti-regime critics. And even
the usually reliably democratic country of Georgia appears to
have succumbed to pressure from its more powerful neighbor
Azerbaijan by allowing, and even assisting in, the abduction of
journalists and dissidents from within its territory. \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Mark Mazzetti and Dan Levin, ``Obama Administration Warns
Beijing about Covert Agents Operating in the United States'' New York
Times August 16, 2015.
\12\ Freedom Now, ``Repression beyond Borders: Exiled Azerbaijanis
in Georgia.'' Brussels, Washington D.C. and Tbilisi, 2017. Available
at: http://www.freedom-now.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Repression-
beyond-Borders-Exiled-Azerbaijanis-in-Georgia.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The watering down of international human rights protections
and practice of granting political asylum is part of a steady
erosion of clear standards of permissible international conduct
within the OSCE area. Authoritarian global media outlets like
RT and CGTN compete with Western counterparts to frame news
coverage. Government-funded non-governmental organizations
(GONGOs) drown out the critical voices of actual democratic
watchdogs and civil society monitors. Regime-friendly election
monitors from the SCO and the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) praise obviously flawed elections while diverting
attention from the assessments of more critical international
observers. We are witnessing a similar erosion of international
human rights safeguards as authoritarians have become
increasingly adept at rebranding even the most vulnerable
opponents abroad as security threats. They target the motives
and credibility of the messengers, especially international
journalist and activists, who report and document human rights
abuses. And they hire Western public relations firms, law firms
and lobbyists in an attempt to whitewash their autocratic
reputations.
Transnational Repression and INTERPOL Reform
In these renewed efforts to go after political opponents in
exile, INTERPOL has become both an arena for countries to
contest the politicization of international law enforcement, as
well as a weapon wielded by autocrats against their political
enemies abroad.
INTERPOL actions or ``alerts,'' especially the issuing of
``Red Notices'' and diffusions, have been at the center of
efforts by autocrats to misuse the international police
organization. Red Notices refer to the electronic warnings
issued by INTERPOL's General Secretariat--at the request of a
member government--to ascertain the location of a wanted
criminal for the purposes of detaining and extraditing them to
stand trial in the home country. ``Diffusions'' are the
requests for international law enforcement cooperation sent by
member states to all or a selected group of INTERPOL members to
assist in the restriction, detention or arrest of an individual
who has been criminally convicted or accused of a crime.
According to INTERPOL's own constitution, international police
cooperation is promoted ``in the spirit of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights'' (Article 2), while members are
strictly prohibited by Article 3 from undertaking ``any
intervention or activities of a political, military, religious
or racial character.'' The latter is also known as the
``neutrality clause'' and meant to safeguard the alert system
from being abused for political purposes.
In practice, however, authoritarian governments have
increasingly violated the neutrality rule by designating exiled
political opponents as wanted criminals or terrorists. Over the
last two decades, INTERPOL has seen an explosive growth in
alerts, increasing almost tenfold from 1,418 in 2001 to 13,561
in 2018--for a current total of over 58,000 active notices
worldwide (about 7,000 of which are public).\13\ Improvements
in informational technology that have eased listing have
contributed to this growth, but authoritarian governments have
also found that taking advantage of the alert system, as Steve
Swerdlow of Human Rights Watch has noted, is a ``low-cost'' way
to export repression and extend the geography of their
autocratic reach. \14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ 2001 from Amy Mackinnon, ``The Scourge of the Red Notice,''
Foreign Policy December 3, 2018. At: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/
03/the-scourge-of-the-red-notice-interpol-uae-russia-china/; 2018 data
and current cumulative data from INTERPOL website. INTERPOL, ``Red
Notices.'' At: https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Notices/Red-
Notices
\14\ Quoted in Mackinnon, ``The Scourge of the Red Notice.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In general terms, the most abusive governments of the
INTERPOL system are autocracies that routinely engage in
transnational repression. Some attention has been given to the
high volume of alerts issued by the governments of Russia and
China, but autocrats in smaller countries also appear to be
abusing the organization. For example, Political Scientist
Edward Lemon's research has shown that the small Central Asian
State of Tajikistan has issued 2,528 Red Notices, including
targeting the leadership and members of the country's political
opposition parties, including Muhiddin Kabiri, the leader of
the Islamic Party of Tajikistan which once shared power with
the government but was subsequently banned in 2015.\15\ The
Central Asian States routinely place Red Notices on exiled
regime insiders, representatives of opposition parties, and
prominent civil society leaders and regime critics. \16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Edward Lemon, ``Weaponizing INTERPOL.'' Journal of Democracy
30, no. 2 (2019): 15-29.
\16\ Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw, Dictators Without
Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia (Yale University Press, 2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Importantly, the repressive effect of INTERPOL abuse does
not just hinge on whether a political opponent is successfully
extradited. In most democracies, properly functioning judicial
systems tend to, eventually, weed out the obvious politically
motivated extradition requests. However these alerts still have
devastating consequences on targeted individuals: they disrupt
their professional and personal lives; they can prevent them
from traveling or lead to unexpected detentions in third
countries; they incur costly legal bills and consume time as
listed individuals await their court hearings; and they make it
difficult for listed individuals to conduct banking and other
financial transactions. Moreover, governments use the very act
of listing to tarnish the reputations of exiled targets in the
media and public sphere, intimidate their family members still
residing in the home country, and confiscate their properties
and businesses.\17\ Nadejda Atayeva, now a human rights
defender with refugee status in France, remained on the Red
Notice list for over 15 years--after she was accused by the
government of Uzbekistan of an economic crime along with other
family members and later convicted in absentia. This greatly
hampered her advocacy work and travel as she assisted hundreds
of Uzbeks with their refugee requests. She finally managed to
have to designation removed after a protracted legal process.
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\17\ Cooley and Heathershaw, Dictators Without Borders, pp. 187-
219.
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Journalists and advocacy organizations, most notably Fair
Trials, have spotlighted many of INTERPOL's abuses, \18\ and
the organization has introduced some reforms since 2015, but
the organization's continued lack of transparency makes it
difficult to assess the progress of its reform efforts and hold
its leadership to account. The TRAP Act would provide much-
needed basic data about which member states issue notices and
in what frequency. It would shed light on how INTERPOL's own
independent oversight boards--the Commission for the Control of
INTERPOL's Files (CCF)--adjudicates complaints of abuses and
which member states are the most frequent violators. This will
in turn allow other member governments, activists and the media
to identify and track obvious abuses of the international
policing network. Finally, it will help ensure that politically
motivated abuse of INTERPOL is kept in check and deter other
authoritarians from misusing the organization.
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\18\ Fair Trials International, ``Strengthening Respect for Human
Rights, Strengthening INTERPOL,'' November 2013. At:
www.fairtrials.org/wp-content/uploads/Strengthening-respect-for-human-
rights-strengthening-INTERPOL4.pdf
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Although it may not be realistic for the United States, or
any country, to check all of the malevolent transnational
activities of autocrats and their foreign security services,
the TRAP Act would send a powerful signal about the importance
of maintaining clear international standards against the
politicization of our most important international
organizations. Autocracies will not have a free hand to
refashion international organizations and redefine basic human
rights standards and critical political protections.
Thank you for your attention.
Prepared Statement of Nate Schenkkan, Director for Special Research,
Freedom House
Introduction
Chairman Hastings, Co-Chairman Wicker, and members of the
commission, it is an honor to testify before you today. I ask
that my full written testimony be admitted into the record.
Transnational repression, or the persecution of exiles by
their origin state, is a practice that shapes politics and
activism around the world. By targeting exiles, governments
seek to extend their control over their citizens even when they
leave their territory. As technology and travel have made it
easier for people to leave their countries yet remain in
contact with their homelands, authoritarian states in
particular are treating exiles as still subject to their rule
even once they have left their territorial jurisdiction.
And it works. By raising the cost of even the most mundane
political activity like commenting on a Facebook post,
transnational repression changes how and even whether citizens
engage in activities with potential political meaning. This
shuts down another pathway for democratic change--and that is
why states use it.
The Turkish case
I began focusing on this issue in my work at Freedom House
after the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. In response to the
coup attempt, the Turkish government embarked on a global
campaign against those it held responsible, principally members
of the Gulen movement. Using an expansive guilt by association
approach, Turkey designated anyone associated with the movement
as part of a terrorist organization, and it aggressively
pursued them around the world. Turkey uploaded tens of
thousands of requests for detention into INTERPOL. It canceled
the passports of thousands of people who were outside the
country, refused to renew the passports of others, and refused
to issue passports for some Turkish children born outside the
country in order to try and get their parents to return to
Turkey where they could be arrested.
Most strikingly, Turkey physically brought back 104 Turkish
citizens from 21 countries, according to its own official
statements. At least 30 of those were kidnappings, with
citizens taken from abroad without any legal process
whatsoever--in some cases, people pulled off the streets of
foreign cities and bundled onto private jets linked to Turkey's
intelligence agency. Dozens of others, including many
registered asylum-seekers, were unlawfully deported to Turkey.
In one well documented case, the kidnapping of six Turkish
citizens from Kosovo, one of the men Turkey took was the wrong
person--a different Turkish citizen with a similar name. The
wrong man remains imprisoned in Turkey anyway.
The Turkish example since 2016 is striking and useful to
study for several reasons: because it is so concentrated in
time, because it is so aggressive, and because it uses so many
different tactics. But transnational repression is universal.
Freedom House has just embarked on a new study of transnational
repression that will document its scope and scale around the
world since 2014. Even as data collection is far from complete,
already we have identified at least 208 cases of violent
transnational repression in the last 7 years targeting exiles
from 21 countries. And we know there are hundreds more waiting
to be identified.
Documented cases range from Saudi Arabia's murder of Jamal
Khashoggi in Istanbul, to Azerbaijan's kidnapping of journalist
Afgan Muxtarli from Georgia, to the disappearance of Thai
activists from Laos, to the mass detention and deportation of
Uighurs, Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners to China from a
range of countries. Although our focus today is on the OSCE
region, we should not overlook the fact that this is a truly
global phenomenon--a global purge, if you will.
Transnational repression occurs in all parts of the world
and affects activists and even apolitical exiles everywhere
they live, including the United States. Just recently the
Uighur Human Rights Project has published a new report on
intimidation and surveillance of the Uighur diaspora in the
United States. This is an issue that affects citizens and
residents in our country as well.
Recommendations
The political scientist Yossi Shain in his seminal book The
Frontier of Loyalty laid out a three-part test for why states
would engage in persecution of exiles. The three parts are:
1) A regime's perception of the threat posed by exiles
2) A regime's available options and skills for
suppression through coercion
3) A regime's cost-benefit calculations for using
coercion
Authoritarian regimes fundamentally see their citizens as
subjects to be ruled instead of voices to be heeded: for this
reason, any kind of political engagement is taken as a threat.
There is nothing we can do to change that first part of the
equation. To reduce transnational repression, then, the United
States needs to focus on the second and third parts:
1. First, it needs to blunt the tools of transnational
repression, or in Shain's vocabulary, weaken the ``available
options and skills'' that a regime has for engaging in
transnational repression. There are several ways to do this: As
other panelists will describe, INTERPOL has become a tool of
transnational repression. The currently proposed Transnational
Repression Accountability and Prevention (TRAP) Act would help
reduce the possibility of INTERPOL abuse. This is a welcome
piece of legislation and I'm sure we will discuss in the panel
this and other ways to counter INTERPOL abuse in the United
States.
Another tool of transnational repression is commercially
available spyware, which has been deployed against exiles by
countries like Saudi Arabia and China. The U.N. Special
Rapporteur for freedom of expression David Kaye has called for
tighter regulation of surveillance exports and a full
moratorium on the export of spyware. The new Draft U.S.
Guidance for the Export of Surveillance Technology prepared by
the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor is a welcome
step in that it places human rights due diligence at the center
of the guidance. Now comes the work to translate the guidelines
into mandatory regulations governing export of spyware,
including those that carry penalties for violations. We cannot
rely on industry to self-regulate in this area.
2. Second, the US needs to reduce the benefit of
engaging in transnational repression:
The best way to do this is by supporting targeted
diasporas, especially in the United States. There are two
current pieces of legislation focused on China's persecution of
Uighurs that include measures to increase protection of the
Chinese diaspora in the United States (HR 649 and HR 1025).
These are positive bills and we hope a reconciled version will
pass. In addition, Congress should pursue separate legislation
to support all vulnerable diaspora communities in the United
States, including by providing additional resources that would
strengthen the ability of the FBI and appropriate United States
law enforcement entities to counter transnational repression
campaigns. Congress should also make resources available to
educate local law enforcement and immigration authorities in
parts of the country where there are high concentrations of
particularly vulnerable diasporas.
Outside of the United States, the US can reduce the
benefits of transnational repression by supporting ``shelter''
models that strengthen the resilience of exiled activists and
journalists. These shelters provide short and long-term
assistance so that activists can recover from persecution,
continue their activism, and make a difference even if they are
forced to remain abroad. The US should work closely with its
democratic allies around the world to build political will to
support shelter projects and persecuted individuals.
The United States should also show leadership by providing
safe haven to persecuted individuals. Instead of reducing the
number of refugees the United States accepts, we should
significantly increase it instead.
3. Third and finally, the US needs to raise the cost
of engaging in transnational repression:
On the diplomatic front, the US should make a consistent
practice of issuing private and where necessary public protests
to diplomats and consular officials who abuse their position to
intimidate, threaten, or otherwise undermine the rights and
freedoms of exiles and members of diasporas in the United
States.
The United States should also sanction individuals
responsible for grave human rights violations against exiles.
As we see clearly in the cases of Saudi Arabia and Turkey,
transnational repression campaigns are matters of state, often
run by designated intelligence units that target exiles and
diasporas. The United States should identify individuals and
units involved in violent transnational repression and sanction
them, using the Global Magnitsky Act, Section 7031[c] of the
Fiscal Year appropriations bill, or other authorities as
appropriate. Especially where the persecuting state is a US
ally, units and individuals should be scrutinized to ensure
that they do not receive security assistance. And where US
criminal law applies, the US should investigate and prosecute
officials and proxies who engage in transnational repression.
Conclusion
In a world that has been shrunk by technology, neither
activism nor authoritarianism respect traditional state
boundaries. The growth of transnational repression is a logical
consequence of technology making it easier for activists to
speak to fellow-citizens from abroad, and easier for states to
attack them. But just because it is a part of our world doesn't
mean we have to accept it. The United States and other
democracies have the ability and the responsibility to blunt
the tools of transnational repression and to protect vulnerable
exiles.
Prepared Statement of Bruno Min, Senior Legal and Policy Advisor, Fair
Trials
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.epsPrepared Statement of Sandra A. Grossman, Partner, Grossman Young &
Hammond, Immigration Law, LLC
HOW ABUSIVE RED NOTICES AFFECT PEOPLE IN THE U.S. IMMIGRATION SYSTEM
AND STEPS THAT CAN BE TAKEN WITHIN THE U.S. AND AT INTERPOL TO PROTECT
VICTIMS \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ This submission is largely based on an original article co-
authored by Sandra A. Grossman and Dr. Ted R. Bromund
([email protected]), who is the Senior Research Fellow in
Anglo-American Relations in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at
the Heritage Foundation. The author would like to thank Dr. Bromund and
also attorney Thomas Ragland for their assistance in preparing this
article.
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Introduction
Chairman Hastings, Co-Chairman Wicker, and members of the
Commission, my name is Sandra Grossman. I am a founding partner
of the law firm Grossman Young and Hammond. I am an attorney
practicing in the field of U.S. immigration law for over 15
years and a member of the American Immigration Lawyers
Association. I became involved in INTERPOL-related work through
my representation of politically exposed individuals who
retained me to help them navigate the byzantine U.S.
immigration system. I have represented hundreds of individuals
fleeing persecution from all over the world. I have also
written, published, and spoken extensively about U.S. asylum
law and different aspects of the U.S. immigration system. In
the course of my work, I have witnessed far-too-often how
oppressive regimes manipulate INTERPOL to persecute political
dissidents seeking refuge in the United States.
Authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, Turkey, Venezuela,
and a growing list of other countries are attempting to achieve
through the back door of the U.S. immigration system what they
cannot accomplish through formal extradition proceedings:
utilizing our justice system to arrest and jail political
dissidents. In my experience, victims of INTERPOL abuse are
often powerless to mitigate the grave effects of an
illegitimate diffusion or Red Notice. These effects include
extensive limitations on their ability to travel, efforts by
federal authorities to deport them, lengthy detention in
immigration custody, the denial of immigration benefits such as
permanent residency or naturalization, the closure of bank
accounts, and separation from family, friends, and colleagues.
Illegitimate Red Notices literally devastate the lives of
already vulnerable people.
How is the U.S. immigration system coopted by
foreign governments?
Before publishing a Red Notice, INTERPOL is required to
review any request for compliance with Articles 2 and 3 of its
Constitution and the subsidiary rules. However, because of
inherent flaws in its system of review and its reflexive
deference to member countries, and because INTERPOL is itself
not an investigative body, far too often the organization
publishes Red Notices and diffusions that have not been
properly vetted but are, in fact, persecutory in nature.
Autocratic nations accomplish this by accusing dissidents of
crimes such as fraud or tax evasion, which on their face appear
to be non-political.
Those abusive Red Notices begin to circulate in U.S. law
enforcement databases after they are communicated to the United
States. Although a Red Notice alone is not a sufficient legal
basis for arrest in the United States, law enforcement
agencies--and in particular Immigration and Customs Enforcement
or ICE--utilize Red Notices to target foreign nationals for
detention and deportation. Accepting a Red Notice without
scrutiny can, and often does, turn ICE agents and Immigration
Judges into unwitting agents of the individual's abusive home
country. Worse, if a person enters the U.S. on a valid visa
that is then cancelled based on the publication of a Red
Notice, the abusive foreign nation has essentially
``manufactured'' an immigration violation in the U.S. by simply
lodging the Red Notice request.
Examples of INTERPOL abuse and how authoritarian regimes use
illegitimate Red Notices to manipulate the U.S. immigration
system
Illegitimate Red Notices have real life implications for
vulnerable people and their families.
1. A U.S. government-credentialed Turkish journalist
who held lawful permanent residence in the United
States sought our services to obtain his U.S.
citizenship. He then learned of a Red Notice issued
against him from the Turkish government related to his
criticisms of the government while working for an
independent newspaper. As acknowledged by multiple
international human rights organizations, the Red
Notices against him and others similarly situated were
part of a large scale, politically-motivated crackdown
on dissent by the Turkish regime. Despite more than a
year of communications with the Commission for the
Control of INTERPOL's Files, and despite the fact that
the prosecutor's office of the Turkish appeals court
itself declared that most of the trial's defendants
should be acquitted, INTERPOL has yet to remove the Red
Notice lodged against this individual. In the meantime,
he cannot travel internationally, and is unable to
pursue U.S. citizenship. Importantly, the Red Notice
has also had the effect of acting as a virtual gag
order; as the journalist has made the decision to
seriously limit his criticisms of the Turkish regime.
2. In another case involving an individual accused of
tax fraud by the Russian Federation, my client filed
for asylum in the United States shortly after
discovering that he was the subject of a Red Notice.
DHS detained the individual at his asylum interview and
he spent four months in jail before being released on
bond. The results of a request under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) filed with ICE later revealed
that ICE had immediately categorized the individual as
a danger to the community and a flight risk based on
nothing more than the Red Notice. An Immigration Judge
eventually released him on a very high $100,000 bond.
Due to our efforts before the Commission for the
Control of INTERPOL's Files, the Red Notice was
deleted, but only after the client and his family had
suffered most of the Red Notice's worse effects. Years
after his initial ICE arrest, he is still fighting
deportation in Immigration Court.
3. In another recent case, a U.S. citizen filed an
immigrant visa petition for her father, a citizen of
Armenia. Unbeknownst to him, he was the subject of a
Red Notice that arose from a private business dispute
with corrupt Armenian officials. ICE detained my client
due to the Red Notice. The Immigration Judge denied a
request to lower the extremely high bond amount,
despite the fact that the Respondent appeared eligible
for permanent residency and asylum and had extensive
family ties in the U.S. The sole stated reason for
refusing to lower the bond amount was the existence of
an INTERPOL Red Notice. In fact, a Red Notice actually
decreases flight risk and makes travel more difficult.
Nevertheless, DHS officials and Immigration Judges
alike consistently miss this point.
4. Several years ago, I represented a Venezuelan
citizen with lawful permanent resident status, who had
his company raided and unlawfully expropriated by the
Venezuelan government. Venezuela issued an illegitimate
Red Notice, as it so often does. For years, until we
were able to convince INTERPOL to cancel the Red
Notice, he was unable to travel. In the meantime, his
mother who resided in Mexico was diagnosed with cancer
and he was unable to visit or care for her.
5. A recent survey by the American Immigration Lawyers
Association (AILA) uncovered many more similar examples
of INTERPOL abuse within the U.S. immigration system.
Attorneys consistently described how immigration
authorities, rarely questioning their legitimacy, used
the existence of a Red Notice as justification to
detain valid asylum seekers and press for their
deportation.
Conclusion
The Department of Justice does not consider a Red Notice
alone to be sufficient basis for arrest, because it does not
meet the requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the
Constitution. Instead, the U.S. treats a foreign issued Red
Notice only as a formalized request to be ``on the lookout''
for the individual in question and to advise if they are
located. Unfortunately, this message is not getting across to
decision-makers in the immigration system.
Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third
Circuit denied a petition for release from detention (habeas
corpus petition) for a Russian citizen who had languished in
U.S. immigration detention for over two-and-a-half years solely
because of a Red Notice issued by Russia accusing him of fraud.
In his dissent, Judge Roth declared that ``the judicial branch
of our federal government should be sheltered from the
political maneuverings of foreign nations.. Nevertheless, there
are occasions when it becomes evident that the machinations of
a foreign government have inadvertently . . . become entangled
in the judicial process.'' The issue of INTERPOL abuse is such
an occasion, which has repeated itself far too often and needs
to be remedied.
The U.S. must ensure that INTERPOL enhances the screening
process for INTERPOL communications, and that the U.S. National
Central Bureau (NCB), which is responsible for communicating
with INTERPOL, acts as a second layer of protection against
abusive notices. The U.S. NCB should more carefully examine the
full, original Red Notice, especially if the issuing state is a
member country that is known to repeatedly misuse INTERPOL. The
NCB should then ensure that the Notice or diffusion meets all
the conditions and contains all the judicial data required by
INTERPOL, and to assess whether the Notice contains any
information or assertions that violate INTERPOL's rules or
indicate bias on the part of the requesting authorities. The
U.S. must also play a greater role in ensuring that INTERPOL
and the CCF is more transparent, publishes its jurisprudence
and reports, and that its activities actually comply with its
rules, including the political predominance test. Those nations
which consistently violate the rules should have their
memberships suspended. If the Transnational Repression
Accountability and Prevention Act (or the ``TRAP'' Act)
accomplishes even some of these goals, it will be a much-needed
first step to address the problem of INTERPOL abuse, and to
prevent our justice system from being manipulated by
authoritarian regimes. International police cooperation is
certainly necessary in a world of transnational crime, but it
must be accomplished in such a way that is also protective of
individual human rights.
=======================================================================
MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
Putin and Other Authoritarians' Corruption is a Weapon--and a Weakness
\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The Washington Post, March 8, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
by David Petraeus and Sheldon Whitehouse
Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, the world is
once again polarized between two competing visions for how to
organize society. On one side are countries such as the United
States, which are founded on respect for the inviolable rights
of the individual and governed by rule of law. On the other
side are countries where state power is concentrated in the
hands of a single person or clique, accountable only to itself
and oiled by corruption.
Alarmingly, while Washington has grown ambivalent in recent
years about the extent to which America should encourage the
spread of democracy and human rights abroad, authoritarian
regimes have become increasingly aggressive and creative in
attempting to export their own values against the United States
and its allies. Russian President Vladimir Putin and other
authoritarian rulers have worked assiduously to weaponize
corruption as an instrument of foreign policy, using money in
opaque and illicit ways to gain influence over other countries,
subvert the rule of law and otherwise remake foreign
governments in their own kleptocratic image.
In this respect, the fight against corruption is more than
a legal and moral issue; it has become a strategic one--and a
battleground in a great power competition.
Yet corruption is not only one of the most potent weapons
wielded by America's authoritarian rivals, it is also, in many
cases, what sustains these regimes in power and is their
Achilles' heel.For figures such as Putin, the existence of
America's rule-of-law world is intrinsically threatening.
Having enriched themselves on a staggering scale--exploiting
positions of public trust for personal gain--they live in fear
that the full extent of their thievery could be publicly
exposed, and that the U.S. example might inspire their people
to demand better.
Corrupt regimes also know that, even as they strive to
undermine the rule of law around the world, they are
simultaneously dependent on it to a remarkable degree. In
contrast to the Cold War, when the Soviet bloc was sealed off
from the global economy and sustained by its faith in communist
ideology, today's autocrats and their cronies cynically seek to
spend and shelter their spoils in democratic nations, where
they want to shop, buy real estate, get health care and send
their children to school.
Ironically, one of the reasons 21st-century kleptocrats are
so fixated on transferring their wealth to the United States
and similar countries is because of the protections afforded by
the rule of law. Having accumulated their fortunes illegally,
they are cognizant that someone more connected to power could
come along and rob them too, as long as their loot is stuck at
home.
Fortunately, the United States has begun to take steps to
harden its rule-of-law defenses and push back against foreign
adversaries. The passage of the Global Magnitsky Act in 2016,
for instance, provided a powerful new tool for targeting
corruption worldwide that is being increasingly utilized. But
there is more to do.
In particular, the United States should make it more
difficult for kleptocrats, and their agents, to secretly move
money through the rule-of-law world, whether by opening bank
accounts, transferring funds or hiding assets behind shell
corporations. Failure to close loopholes in these areas is an
invitation to foreign interference in America's democracy and a
threat to national sovereignty.
Congress should tighten campaign-finance laws to improve
transparency given that U.S. elections are clearly being
targeted for manipulation by great-power competitors.
At the same time, the United States must become more
aggressive and focused on identifying and rooting out
corruption overseas. Just as the Treasury Department has
developed sophisticated financial-intelligence capabilities in
response to the threat of terrorism and weapons of mass
destruction, it is time to expand this effort to track, disrupt
and expose the corrupt activities of authoritarian competitors
and those aligned with them.
Hardening the nation's rule-of-law defenses is not, of
course, a substitute for traditional forms of U.S. power,
including military strength and economic dynamism. But it can
provide an additional set of tools to bolster national
security.
In the intensifying worldwide struggle between the rule of
law and corruption, the United States cannot afford neutrality.
Complacency about graft and kleptocracy beyond U.S. borders
risks complicity in it--with grave consequences both for the
nation's reputation abroad and Americans' well-being at home.
David Petraeus is a retired U.S. Army general and the former
director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Sheldon
Whitehouse, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Rhode Island.
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.epsStatement from WUC President Dolkun Isa on China's Abuse of
INTERPOL
China's abuse of the INTERPOL red notice system and general
harassment had significant detrimental effects on my work as a
human rights activists and restricted my access to various
countries and organizations and violated my basic rights to
freedom of movement and freedom of expression.
For context, I am currently the President of the World
Uyghur Congress, an umbrella organization of Uyghur diaspora
groups that aims to promote democracy, human rights and freedom
for the Uyghur people and to use peaceful, nonviolent, and
democratic means to determine their political future. I am also
the Vice President of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples
Organisation (UNPO). I have been working in the field of human
rights advocacy for over 20 years, since I fled China and was
granted political asylum in Germany in 1996. I was forced to
flee China due to my activism as a leader of the Uyghur
democratic students' demonstration in 1988.
I have consistently advocated for the rights of the Uyghur
people and has raised the issue in the United Nations, the
institutions of the European Union and in individual States, as
well as working to mobilize the Uyghur diaspora community to
collectively advocate for their rights and the rights of the
Uyghur people in East Turkistan.
Due to my work on Uyghur human rights issues, the Chinese
government has taken a number of measures to inhibit my work
and movement, the most serious of these being the subject of
today's hearing. In 1999, I first learned that the Chinese
government had issued an INTERPOL Red Notice on my name, which
demanded my arrest and extradition back to China. The Chinese
government made completely unfounded allegations with no
compelling evidence that I was involved in terrorist
activities. These charges were politically motivated and
without merit, but were accepted by INTERPOL, apparently
without a proper investigation into the Chinese government's
claims, and a Red Notice was put on my name. It was not until
February 21, 2018 that the Red Notice on my name was finally
deleted. The NGO Fair Trials used INTERPOL's updated complaints
mechanism to appeal the Red Notice, which was then deleted upon
review.
While I am deeply grateful for the work of Fair Trials and
happy to no longer be subjected to a Red Notice, it took from
1997-2018 to overturn a clearly politically motivated and
unsubstantiated Red Notice. My case is one of several cases
where authoritarian governments have abused the system in an
effort to silence and impede the work of human rights activists
and political dissidents.
The practical impacts of the Red Notice on my name during
these 21 years were real and substantial. It impacted my work
by preventing me from being able to travel to certain
countries, to enter government buildings on a number of
occasions, to have access to fora and institutions. On several
occasions it led to dangerous and potentially life threatening
situations where I was faced with a possible extradition to
China, where I would have certainly been arbitrarily detained
and subjected to other serious human rights violations.
Crucially, the Red Notice was used by the Chinese
government to defame me and to delegitimize my work. On
numerous occasions, including in a Statement from the Chinese
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson in July 2017, I was labelled a
``terrorist wanted under the red notice of INTERPOL and by the
Chinese police''. This politically motivated Red Notice was
used as proof by the Chinese government that their false claims
about me were true. The reputational damage and the `terrorist'
label certainly made my human rights work significantly more
difficult.
Below is a chronological list of incidents of harassment
and attempts to me from speaking about China's human rights
record.
LIn December 1999, I was detained at the US
General Consul in Frankfurt while applying for a visa to the
United States. He was handed over by embassy guards to German
police and detained for 6 hours. I was then released and became
aware that he was stopped due to China putting a notice on him
through INTERPOL.
LIn April 2005, during the session of the Human
Right Committee in Geneva, I participated in a joint Uyghur-
Tibetan peaceful demonstration in front of U.N. After the
demonstration, Swiss police detained me and took me to the
police station. I was questioned and detained for 5-6 hours and
had my finger prints taken. I was then released.
LIn September 2006, I was stopped and detained in
the Dallas Airport while on a trip to the USA. After being
detained for 23 hours, I was sent back to Germany. This
incident too was caused by the red notice placed on Dolkun Isa
through INTERPOL by the Chinese government.
LIn August 2008, I was stopped at the Antalya
airport in Turkey. I was refused entry, likely because of
Chinese pressure, and was sent back to Germany 24 hours later.
LIn September 2009, I was detained at the Seoul
airport in South Korea for 3 days after traveling to the
country to attend a conference. After significant pressure from
the Chinese government, the South Korean authorities were
considering forcibly returning me to China. It took the
intervention of the German foreign ministry to prevent this
from happening and I was forced to return to Germany.
LAlso in 2009, I was informed that U was banned
from Taiwan and refused a visa. This decision followed a debate
in the Taiwanese parliament, where the decision was made to ban
the Uyghur activists to improve relations with mainland China.
LIn April 2016, I was due to attend a conference
in Darussalam, India together with Tibetan groups. I was
granted an electronic visa to attend the event. The
spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry heavily protested
this to the Indian government and a few days later my visa was
canceled.
LIn April 2017, I was removed from the U.N.
Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues by U.N. security on the
third day of his attending. I was accredited to attend the
event and had attended the first 2 days without incident. No
explanation has ever been given for his expulsion despite
numerous requests for more information. The Chines head of U.N.
DESA responsible for the Forum has since admitted on Chinese TV
that he used his power as a U.N. official to get me expelled.
LIn July 2017, I was stopped by Italian police
while trying to attend a press conference that I was invited to
in the Italian Senate. The police officers who stopped me ad
prevented me entering informed me that I was stopped because I
had a `red notice' put on me by China. I was detained for 3
hours before I was released, but I was not allowed to enter the
Italian
Senate.
LIt should also be noted that I have been
regularly harassed by Chinese officials while attend the U.N.
Human Rights Council Sessions. The Chinese government has sent
letters to other Permanent Missions telling them not to meet
with me or other WUC representatives and labelled me a
terrorist.
LIn April 2018 the Chinese Mission to the U.N.
tried to revoke the ECOSOC status of the Society for Threatened
Peoples who had accreditated me to attend the U.N. Permanent
Forum on Indigenous Issues, again claiming that I was a
terrorist. The case was taken before the ECOSOC Committee where
the Chinese government again was not able to provide any
evidence for their claims and eventually stopped proceedings.
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.epsStatement of Alexey Kharis to the Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe
My name is Alexey Kharis. I am a 44-year-old Russian
citizen. I have a wife and two young children, aged 8 and 10.
We are seeking asylum in the United States after I was targeted
for opposing official corruption in Russia. I am giving this
statement to describe how U.S. immigration authorities have
allowed Russia to persecute me through abuse of the INTERPOL
Red Notice system.
Before my problems with the Russian government, I ran a
successful construction business that employed over 2,000
people and participated in projects with international
corporations such as Hyundai and ExxonMobil. In 2010, my
company was awarded a contract to renovate a shipbuilding
facility near Vladivostok, Russia. Unfortunately, I later
learned that high-level government officials were embezzling
from the project. In 2014, I was called in for interrogation by
agents of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), who asked
me to help them falsely accuse a whistleblower who was exposing
this corruption. When I refused, they threatened to ``bury'' me
alongside the whistleblower. Later that year, my family and I
traveled to the United States for what we thought would be a
short trip. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that I was facing
false accusations of embezzlement in Russia, likely as
retaliation for refusing to cooperate with the FSB.
At first, we tried to obtain justice through the Russian
courts. Unfortunately, in 2015, the Russian government issued
an INTERPOL Red Notice against me based on its false
allegations. I later learned that Russia routinely uses Red
Notices and false accusations of financial crimes as a way to
have other countries return its dissidents from abroad. Having
lost all hope in the Russian legal system, I applied for asylum
in 2016. I even mentioned the INTERPOL Red Notice as one of the
ways the Russian government was persecuting me. Unfortunately,
U.S. immigration authorities used the INTERPOL Red Notice as a
basis to revoke our visas.
When I later went to pick up my asylum decision in August
2017, I was arrested and placed in removal proceedings. I ended
up spending 15 months in immigration detention because the
immigration judge was convinced that the INTERPOL Red Notice
meant I was a flight risk, even though it had been issued by a
regime that routinely abuses the INTERPOL system to punish
dissidents. The immigration judge also denied me asylum, in
part, because he found that the INTERPOL Red Notice was
``probable cause'' evidence that I had committed these crimes.
I ended up having to take my case to a federal court, which
ordered the immigration judge to consider evidence that
``Russia is a frequent abuser of INTERPOL's lax procedural
checks to obtaining a Red Notice,'' and that the Department of
Justice does not consider INTERPOL Red Notices, on their own,
as a basis for arrest. \1\ I was finally released on bond in
November 2018. In April 2019, the Board of Immigration Appeals
reversed my asylum denial, in part because it found that a Red
Notice was not a sufficient basis to deny me asylum. Finally,
in July 2019, INTERPOL informed me that it was deleting my Red
Notice after I submitted a request to them nearly nine months
before. My asylum case is still working its way through the
immigration courts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Kharis v. Sessions, 18-CV-04800 (N.D. Cal. November 6, 2018).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In some ways, I am lucky. Unlike so many Russian
dissidents, I had the resources and family support to wage this
five-year battle in both Russian and U.S. courts. However, I
continue to suffer the consequences of U.S. immigration
authorities relying on fraudulent Russian Red Notices. I still
have to wear an ankle monitor, preventing me from traveling
freely, even for my job. Also, my kids are still reluctant to
let me go even for a short trip, asking if there is a chance
that I might go to the ``immigration camp'' again. Also, I live
in fear that Russian will try once again to abuse the legal
process to target me and my family. Therefore, I hope the
Commission will consider my experience and work to prevent
authoritarian regimes from using the U.S. legal system to
oppress its own citizens.
Statement of Ilhan Tanir to the Commission on Security and Cooperation
in Europe
When I woke up on the morning of October 16, 2018, I knew
immediately from the alerts on my phone of dozens of mentions
of my name in the media that there had been a big development
in one of the cases in Turkey against me. But the development
was so far from what I had been expecting that it seemed almost
surreal. An Istanbul court had requested that INTERPOL issue a
Red Notice arrest warrant for myself and my former chief editor
at the Cumhuriyet newspaper, Can Dundar. What could I possibly
have done to compel Turkish authorities to demand that INTERPOL
make such a move?
The Turkish government is pursuing me for my activities as
a journalist, and is charging me, like many other journalists
back in Turkey, with membership in--and associations with two
different terrorist organizations. I am accused of being a
member of the Gulen movement as well as making propaganda for
the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an outlawed Kurdish armed
organization recognized as a terrorist group by the United
States, Turkey and the European Union. I am also accused of
``undermining the Turkish government''.
I should tell you first without a doubt that this is a
purely political case in which the aim is to silence and punish
me like the dozens of journalists now rotting in Turkey's
jails. If I had obeyed the Turkish government and muted my
critical reporting and tweets, or took the side of the
government, I would have been just fine.
The Cumhuriyet indictment is more than 400 pages long and I
take my place in it alongside more than a dozen other
journalists thanks to the time I spent reporting for the
secularist daily between January 2015 and July 2016.
Around 20 pages of the indictment refer to me, and these
include about 35 tweets out of nearly 76,000 tweets I posted at
@WashingtonPoint from 2009. In not one of these tweets, did I
praise U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen or his movement,
unlike AKP government officials, journalists and media
mouthpieces who were doing so at the time.
As I have previously said and written publicly, I
unequivocally reject all allegations of ties to the Gulen
movement and repeat that the indictment against me contains not
one shred of evidence of any link. Given its record, it is
still not that surprising that Turkish authorities have decided
to request that INTERPOL issue a Red Notice international
warrant for my arrest due to a case involving the Cumhuriyet
newspaper.
For the PKK allegations, the indictment cites an interview
I gave to the pro-Kurdish ARA News agency, which has also
published interviews with numerous current and former U.S.
officials, including the spokesperson of the anti-Islamic State
coalition at the time, Colonel Ryan Dillon, and former U.S.
ambassador Robert Ford. The reporter who interviewed me was
Wladimir van Wilgenburg, a long-serving and respected reporter
on the Middle East, who frequently speaks with government
officials from the United States and other countries in the
region.
Another piece of ``evidence'' showing my alleged
association with the PKK is from an article I wrote on August
12, 2015, titled ``A Strong Stance from the US: Attacks on YPG
Are Unacceptable'':
A senior State Department official in Turkey who has
been closely following events told Cumhuriyet, `We have
made it clear that an attack by Turkey on the YPG in
Syria is unacceptable for us.' When reminded of
Sinirlioglu's claim that the US had carried out strikes
on the PYD, the official started laughing as if to say
`What else?' `Strikes against the YPG aren't even on
the table.' When asked if there was a communication
problem, the official said, `These are complex issues.
Turkey wants us as an ally, and we want to work
together with them. For the sake of preventing harm to
Turkish civilians from attacks by the PKK, we want the
top officials to be as careful as possible.'
In the Turkish prosecutors' world, reports like these show
my support for a terror organization. I do not think I need to
do any defense for these articles I wrote as they speak for
themselves.
The indictment accuses me of ``taking aim at the president
personally'' and continues very vaguely worded `accusations':
While creating the impression that he was a journalist
with reliable sources and powerful connections,
especially in America, he depicted Turkey as an
ungovernable country that has become isolated in its
foreign relations, that fails to show the necessary
decisiveness in dealing with terrorist organizations,
and that even overlooks/aids ISIS (the Islamic State).
In the suspect's articles, it is noteworthy that he
often based his claims on unnamed `high-level American'
sources.
These are the main accusations Turkish prosecutors laid out
against me. For a few irrelevant tweets, discussions with a
news site and university, and some easily refuted false claims,
the prosecutor wants to give me seven-and-a-half to 15 years in
jail.
Since November 2018, I have been trying to understand what
kind of data, notice or diffusion on me is stored at INTERPOL
following press reports that the Turkish Government is pursuing
a Red Notice on me. I prepared my case in consultation with
some leading experts on INTERPOL in Washington, D.C. and expert
lawyers on the subject, laying out that the indictment against
me by the Turkish government has not a single evidence against
me and that such a politically motivated request from the
Turkish government should be rejected.
Unfortunately, my attempts to get INTERPOL to simply tell
me whether they have any data on me failed. All I received from
INTERPOL is a vaguely worded short letter in March 2019, saying
that the ``National Central Bureau (NCB) of INTERPOL in Turkey
has restricted the communication of any information, including
the existence or the absence of data concerning you in the
INTERPOL Information System.''
According to experts and lawyers, `restriction' could mean
there are data on me or not. After almost a year, I am back to
the square one.
Here INTERPOL is unwilling to even share whether any data
exist on me, and by this lack of transparency happens to enable
an authoritarian regime to harass a critical journalist living
abroad, placing limits on my ability to travel freely and
creating quite a few other costs. INTERPOL is simply assisting
the Turkish government to raise the cost of criticism of her.
I am extremely happy to see that the U.S. Helsinki
Commission is taking up this important legislation to pave the
way for INTERPOL to update its system and hopefully to respond
to legal challenges. There is a clear need for INTERPOL to
enforce its rules for member nations, correcting and updating
disseminated notices and communications to stop abuse by
authoritarian regimes worldwide.
According to Article 3 of INTERPOL's Constitution, ``It is
strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any
intervention or activities of a political, military, religious
or racial character.''
To follow its own constitution, INTERPOL needs to be
reformed and be more transparent. I sincerely hope that the
Helsinki Commission's work on the subject will help INTERPOL to
do just that.
Sincerely,
Ilhan Tanir
Note: This statement is a shortened version of three
installments I published about my experience with INTERPOL in
2018.
[all]
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