Wealth and Power Win Again, With Appointing Emirati General Accused of Torture as Interpol Chief

The Guardian, in a new report published yesterday, 26 November, expressed the rage of human rights organizations and activists over appointing the Emirati General Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi as its new president. The man has a long criminal record, and yet his appointment “showed how wealth and power could again win over the decision of international organizations”, The Guardian reported.

The Major General’s election has been criticised by human rights advocates and his alleged victims and prompted concern from legal experts.

al-Raisi serves as inspector general of the interior ministry of the United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich confederation which is known for alleged human rights abuses and breaches of the rule of law.

Despite grave doubts concerning his track record, al-Raisi was elected on Thursday 25 November 2021 to a four-year term as president of the International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol, during an annual meeting of the organization’s delegates held in Istanbul.

 

International Worry

In a report published yesterday 26 November, by The Independent, announcing the appointment of al-Raisi the head of Interpol, the Major General said after winning the ballot with nearly 69 per cent of the votes, that “Interpol is an indispensable organization, built on the strength of its partnerships,”

“It is this collaborative spirit, united in mission, that I will continue to foster as we work to make a safer world for people and communities,” he added.

 

 

However, in the light of this event, Critics were very outraged by the election results. The UAE's tyranny and torture are not hidden from the world. The oil-rich confederation of Arabian Peninsula monarchies has been usually accused of imprisoning and abusing political opponents and violating “Interpol’s Red Notice arrest warrant system to target dissidents, or even businesspeople, who fall foul of well-connected Emiratis.”

 

According to the same report, two British men, who were imprisoned in the UAE, sought an investigation into al-Raisi as he supervised their detention, accusing him of torture and oppression, this week in Istanbul.

In an opinion piece published in a state-owned UAE newspaper, Mr Raisi said he aims to “modernise” Interpol by using “tech-driven policing,” Borzou Daragahi, the Independent report's writer said that this may be "a possible reference to the ubiquitous electronic surveillance tools deployed by authoritarian states."

“We don’t know what happens behind closed doors, because none of its processes are entirely transparent,” said Ms. Nakhwal. “There’s no guarantee or sense of security that there will be proper demarcation or decision-making. We can only guess there will be influence,” she added.

 

Criminal Record

After choosing al-Raisi as head of the Interpol, The Guardian’s report said that advocates who are specialized in criminal law expressed their fears towards his appointment because it would do irreparable harm to Interpol and “embolden nations such as China and Russia” to oppress and weaponize international law enforcement against innocents who fall foul of dictatorial regimes.

In the same report, Matthew Hedges, a UK scholar who was in a prison in 2018 under Ahmed Nasser’s authority for 7 months said that “he does not know how the Interpol members who voted for al-Raisi don’t feel embarrassed about the choice they made and what this will actually mean for the reputation of the organization.” Matthew said that he was drugged against his will after being arrested on false charges of espionage during a study trip and was detained and tortured under al-Raisi authority. The victim described Raisi’s victory as “a disgrace”.

However, in an attempt to deny Matthew’s exposure of the country’s torture and abuse, the UAE has said that he was not subjected to any physical or psychological mistreatment during his detention.

The Sudanese-born British citizen Ali Issa Ahmad is another complainant; he was held in UAE prisons in 2019 after being accosted by security officials for wearing a Qatar football shirt. He said that “it is really terrible that he has been given this honour,” adding that “the UAE will use it to make the world think that they are good at policing, but he will always know the truth. The scars he has on his body which the UAE police left on him will always know the truth.”

In fact, many Human Rights defenders reacted to Raisi’s triumph with alarm. Sayed Ahmed al-Wadaei, the director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy said that “this election represents the beginning of a dangerous era, with authoritarian regimes now able to dictate international policing, and no one is safe from the abuse of Interpol and authoritarian regimes.”

 

Power Control

Interpol has the power to issue red calls that means a call by one country for the arrest of individuals in another country. The latter has often been accused of allowing red notices to be used by autocratic governments to pursue political revenge, according to The Guardian.

The head of ALQST for Human Rights that campaigns against violations in Saudi Arabia, Nabhan al-Hanshi, said that “Raisi’s election sends a chilling message that Interpol has abandoned its human rights commitments,” he explained that” this raises fears that existing concerns about the agency, including the use of politically motivated ‘red notices’ by abusive states, will worsen.”

Not only al-Hanshi, US senator Roger Wicker said also last week that “Interpol had become a tool in the hands of despots and crooks who seek to punish dissidents and political opponents in an effort to turn other countries’ law enforcement against the rule of law.”

The hidden features of al-Raisi’s victory are the UAE’s support for the Interpol. In fact, the United States of Emirates has been a generous funder of Interpol, “donating $54m (£40.5m) in 2017 and almost equivalent to the required contributions of all the organization’s 195 member countries, which amounted to $68m in 2020.” In 2019 it had pledged to give about €10m, approximately 7% of the organization’s total annual budget, and this is really shocking, as reported by The Guardian.

Last but not least, the former director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, Sir David Calvert-Smith, issued a report in April concluding that the UAE was “seeking to improperly influence Interpol through funding and other mechanisms”. David added that al-Raisi “had overseen the increasing crackdown on dissidents, continued torture and abuses of the criminal justice system” in the Emirates.