OREANDA-NEWS. The US Senate has approved an amendment to the 2022 defence budget that would take action against politically motivated abuses of Interpol mechanisms. This was announced on the website of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The text of the amendment itself states that "some Interpol member countries have repeatedly misused the databases and its mechanisms, including notifications and mailings, for blatantly political or other illegal purposes and in violation of international human rights standards".

The authors of the amendment, Senators Roger Wicker and Ben Cardin, believe that these countries "have sent requests to Interpol for the sake of attacking and harassing political opponents, human rights defenders or journalists".

The paper proposes to require the US Attorney General and Secretary of State to provide a comprehensive list of countries that "abuse Interpol procedures such as the service of a Red Notice" and to codify the current policy that the US cannot extradite foreigners to other states solely on the basis of a Red Notice.

"A Red Notice" is a paper requesting that individuals who are internationally wanted be held in custody until they are surrendered to the Interpol member state that sent the notice. The US Senate believes that "many countries, most notably China, Russia and Turkey, frequently and grossly abuse this system". The upper house of parliament stressed that the authorities of these countries had put "untold numbers of innocent people" on international wanted lists, who were then extradited from the US to their home countries, where they faced political persecution or torture, and may also have been killed.