20 Leaders The Economist December 4th 2021
M
atthew hedges, a Britishdoctoralstudent,sayshespent
nearly seven months mostly in solitary confinement in a
prison in the United Arab Emirates (uae). He tells of being
drugged, interrogated, blindfolded and forced to stand all day in
manacles. He falsely confessed to being a spy just to end the ago
ny, he says. He was eventually pardoned and freed. To his horror,
the man he accuses of complicity in his torture, Ahmed Naser al
Raisi, the inspectorgeneral of the uaeinterior ministry at the
time, who was in charge of prisons, was neither sacked nor de
moted. The uaedenies the claims and on November 25th Mr al
Raisi was elected Interpol’s new president.
Interpol was set up to help countries’ police forces work to
gether to catch crooks. It has an unfortunate habit of employing
them instead. Jackie Selebi, its president from
2004 to 2008, was later sentenced to 15 years in
jail for corruption in his native South Africa.
Meng Hongwei, the boss from 2016 to 2018, was
summoned back to China, disappeared, reap
peared in the dock and got 13andahalf years
for bribery. (His wife says he was framed.) A
cynic might ask: whose side is Interpol on?
The agency does not arrest people, but is es
sentially a communications hub. Its main tool is the “red no
tice”, which is akin to an international arrest warrant (see Inter
national section). Member states give Interpol the names of
criminals on the lam and ask for a red notice. This used to be
rare. In 2001 fewer than 1,500 were issued. That figure has grown
more than sevenfold. In all, more than 66,000 red notices are ac
tive. Most are for real criminals, but autocratic regimes have
found they can also be used to persecute exiled dissidents.
Russia, responsible for 43% of the 7,500 red notices that have
been made public, is a serial abuser. Petr Silaev, a green activist
who found asylum in Finland, was accused of “hooliganism”, ar
rested in Spain and had to fight to avoid extradition to Russia.
China is another. In July a Uyghur living in Turkey was detainedinMoroccoonthebasisofanInterpolred notice. Democracies
seldom hand over dissidents to autocratic regimes, but other au
tocrats have no such qualms. And red notices can do harm even
without extradition. They can ruin careers and make it harder to
board a plane or open a bank account. Many people wrongly as
sume that a red notice stems from a thorough investigation by
an international body, rather than, say, a despot’s secret police.
Interpol staff are trying harder to weed out the most egre
gious requests. Reportedly, Turkish officials attempted to
upload the names of 60,000 Gulenists onto Interpol’s database,
but were rebuffed. (Members of this Islamist movement have
been especially persecuted in Turkey since some of them backed
a coup in 2016.) American senators introduced a bill in May that
would require additional checks before Amer
ican police act on Interpol notices.
But more is needed. For a start, Interpol’s
president should be chosen in an open vote. To
day’s secret ballots of all 195 member states
make it hard to spot armtwisting. That would
still leave autocratic regimes with a lot of influ
ence. So internal reforms are needed, too.
Requests for red notices from abusers
should be subject to strict scrutiny. Currently there is not much,
and it is opaque. Persistent abusers should be shut out. In
Interpol blocked Syria’s access to its databases, but in October it
inexplicably let the blooddrenched regime back in. Making In
terpol more transparent and rigorous will cost money. Its annual
budget is just €145m ($164m)—less than that of the New Orleans
police department. Rich democracies should chip in more.
Interpol belongs to the machinery of international gover
nance, an area of competition between democracies and autoc
racies. It is supposed to bolster the rule of law, by helping catch
real globetrotting criminals. It must do more to resist being cap
tured by dictators and autocratswhowould like to turn it into a
branch of their own secret police.nThe election of a worrying new president is just the latest thing to go wrongWho will police Interpol?
Global crimeBetween 60% and 90% of children identified as trans eventually
seem to reconcile themselves to their biological sex, so long as
their crosssex identity is not uncritically affirmed. Talking to
patients about their feelings should not be illegal.
Starting puberty blockers often begins what doctors call a
“treatment cascade”. Data from European clinics suggest the vast
majority of those prescribed puberty blockers go on to take
crosssex hormones. The drugs are powerful, and so have po
werful side effects. Puberty blockers may stunt growth and
weaken bones. (A recent case in Sweden documented a teenager
with osteopenia, a debilitating brittlebone disease usually re
stricted to the elderly.) Crosssex hormones produce irreversible
changes, including the growth of facial hair and a deep voice in
women, and the growth of breasts in men. Longterm use can af
fect fertility. Surgery to remove breasts is permanent, as is sur
gery on the genitals, which also guarantees sterility. As the grow
ing number of “detransitioners” shows, some of those who un
dergo such treatments come to regret them bitterly. A ban on talking therapies would leave the government
swimming against the tide. Much of what passes for gender
medicine has been pursued recklessly, with little care for the
longterm wellbeing of patients. Yet even within the field,
doubts are spreading. Hospitals in Finland and Sweden have
backed off from prescribing drugs to the under18s, in favour of
talking therapies. In America, where any deviation from gender
affirmation risks provoking attacks on social media, prominent
gender doctors are beginning to worry that drugs and surgery
have been handed out too readily. An exception is Canada, where
a similar ban on conversion therapy has been in place since
and is now being strengthened.
For some transidentified patients, drugs and hormone treat
ments will be the right outcome. But for many others, perhaps
most, they may not. That is why talking therapies must be avail
able in treatment. Britain’s health service has recently embarked
on a review of paediatric gender medicine, whichthe new law
would preempt. Ministers should think again.n