page_title: Interpol
section_title: Appeals and requests withdrawals
hierarchical_section_title: Interpol / Criticism / Abusive requests for INTERPOL arrests / Appeals and requests withdrawals
caption_attribution_description: English: Meng Hongwei on Forum Stage during the opening day of Web Summit 2017 at Altice Arena in Lisbon. Photo by Diarmuid Greene/Web Summit via Sportsfile
context_page_description: The International Criminal Police Organization, commonly known as INTERPOL, is an international organisation that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime control. Headquartered in Lyon, France, it has seven regional bureaus worldwide and a National Central Bureau in all 194 member states, making it the world's largest police organization.
  INTERPOL originated with the first International Criminal Police Congress in 1914, which brought officials from 24 countries to discuss cooperation on law enforcement matters. It was founded in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission, adopting many of its current duties throughout the 1930s. After coming under Nazi control in 1938, the agency was effectively moribund until after the Second World War. In 1956, the ICPC adopted a new constitution and the name INTERPOL, derived from its telegraphic address used since 1946.
  INTERPOL provides investigative support, expertise, and training to law enforcement worldwide, focusing on three major areas of transnational crime: terrorism, cybercrime, and organized crime.
context_section_description: The procedure for filing an appeal with INTERPOL is a long and complex one. For example, the Venezuelan journalist Patricia Poleo and a colleague of Kazakh activist Ablyazov, and Tatiana Paraskevich, who were granted refugee status, sought to overturn the politically motivated request for as long as one and a half years, and six months, respectively.
  
  INTERPOL has previously recognized some requests to include persons on the wanted list as politically motivated, e.g., Indonesian activist Benny Wenda, Georgian politician Givi Targamadze, ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, and ex-president of Honduras Manuel Zelaya Rosales; these persons have subsequently been removed. However, in most cases, INTERPOL removes a Red Notice against refugees only after an authoritarian state closes a criminal case or declares amnesty (for example, the cases of Russian activists and political refugees Petr Silaev, Denis Solopov, and Aleksey Makarov, as well as the Turkish sociologist and feminist Pinar Selek).
caption: Chinese authorities said former INTERPOL President Meng Hongwei is under investigation for bribery and corruption.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4928", "Image ImageLength": "3280", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "7 November 2017; Meng Hongwei, President, INTERPOL, on Forum Stage during the opening day of Web Summit 2017 at Altice Arena in Lisbon. Photo by Diarmuid Greene/Web Summit via Sportsfile", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D4", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2018:10:06 02:11:21", "Image Artist": "Diarmuid Greene / Web Summit / Sportsfile", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "\u00a9SPORTSFILE", "Image ExifOffset": "584", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "1280", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1394", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4965", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "2000", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:01:03 08:24:03", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:01:03 08:24:03", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "540241/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Fine weather", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "200", "EXIF SubSecTime": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1260", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "200", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Hard", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}