Saudi Arabia’s New INTERPOL Office: A Dangerous Expansion of Transnational Repression

On 30 January 2025, Saudi Arabia and the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) announced an agreement to open a regional office in Saudi Arabia to support law enforcement efforts across the Middle East and North Africa. This included plans for the new office to cooperate with regional structures such as the Arab Interiors Ministers’ Council[…]

Event Summary: ADHRB Hosts Panel on INTERPOL Misuse and Human Rights

On September 17, 2024, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) held an event at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, focused on the misuse of INTERPOL tools by authoritarian governments and the implications for human rights. ADHRB has been researching INTERPOL since 2016 and remains convinced that reforms to prevent such abuses[…]

Transnational repression: a tool that extends authoritarian government’s capacity for repression

Perhaps not-so-well-known, transnational repression constitutes a threat to human rights that has been going on for decades. The phenomenon, which entails governments reaching beyond their borders to silence or deter dissent by committing human rights abuses against their nationals or former nationals, has been extensively documented by Human Rights Watch. The 2018 murder and dismemberment[…]

Urgent Appeal: Bulgaria Must Halt Deportation of Saudi Human Rights Activist

The story of Abdulrahman al-Khalidi has recently caught the media’s attention, along with campaigns requesting his release. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Article 19 promptly warned Bulgarian authorities of the risk the activist would face if deported to Saudi Arabia.  This case has already highlighted negligence by Sofia authorities, violating the human rights of the[…]

INTERPOL Deletion Request Program

Background: Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) first started its INTERPOL program in May 2016, and has worked on a handful of cases, including multiple successful requests for deletion as well as certificates for multiple individuals who believed that they may have been subjected to a Red Notice. INTERPOL (the International Criminal[…]