Interpol meets to select new head after China’s arrest

Police chiefs from around the world gathered in Dubai on Sunday for Interpol’s general assembly to select a new president after the agency’s former leader was detained in China.

Meng Hongwei— who was China’s vice minister of public security while also leading Interpol—went missing while on a trip to China in September. It later emerged the long-time Communist Party insider with decades of experience in China’s security apparatus was detained as part of a sweeping purge against allegedly corrupt or disloyal officials under President Xi Jinping’s authoritarian administration.

Interpol member-states will also be deciding on whether to accept Kosovo as a full member, which would allow officials there to file red notices for Serbian officials that Kosovo considers war criminals.

The red notices are alerts circulated by Interpol to all member countries that identify a person wanted for arrest by another country. Interpol says there are 57,289 active red notices around the world.

Interpol acts as a clearinghouse for national police services that want to hunt down suspects outside their borders.

The body, however, has faced criticism that governments have abused the “red notice” system to go after political enemies and dissidents, even though its charter explicitly proclaims its neutrality and prohibits the use of police notices for political reasons.