Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to prevent abuse of the Interpol red notices system for political reasons by states abusing the human rights of (a) Uyghur people, (b) political opponents of the Russian Government, (c) human rights activists in China and (d) journalists.

The Government strongly supports INTERPOL in its efforts to improve the safeguards it has in place to protect human rights and preclude interventions or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character. The Government views any allegation of misuse of INTERPOL’s systems very seriously and works closely with INTERPOL to ensure the legitimacy of the Red Notice system.

All Red Notices are subject to review by a multidisciplinary Notices and Diffusions Task Force in INTERPOL prior to publication to ensure legal compliance and prevent abuse of INTERPOL systems. In November 2019 the Home Office seconded a senior lawyer to INTERPOL to support the work of the Taskforce.

The UK is committed to the principle of non-refoulement and has repeatedly called on other countries to respect their obligations not to force persons to return to a country where there are substantial grounds for believing they would be in danger of being subjected to torture.