MENA Rights Group leads a coalition of 15 civil society organisations in urging the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council to cease its facilitation of arbitrary extraditions of peaceful dissidents and human rights defenders across Arab League countries and to align its legal framework and systems with international human rights law
February 17, 2025The undersigned organisations call on the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council (AIMC) to cease its facilitation of arbitrary extraditions of peaceful dissidents and human rights defenders across Arab League countries and to align its legal framework and systems with international human rights law.
On Sunday, February 16, 2025, the AIMC held its 42nd annual conference in its headquarters in Tunis. Often misleadingly referred to as “Arab INTERPOL”, the AIMC is an Arab League body tasked with enhancing cooperation among Arab states in the fields of internal security and crime prevention. Through its Department of Criminal Prosecution and Data, the AIMC circulates state-requested warrants to liaison divisions in Member States and facilitates wanted individuals’ extradition.
Although extraditions for “crimes of a political nature” are explicitly prohibited by the AIMC’s legal framework, specifically article 41 of the Riyadh Arab Agreement for Judicial Cooperation, they still occur in practice. Lacking an oversight body to prevent the abuse of its systems, the AIMC has become the perfect tool for Arab League states to request politically motivated extraditions.
Between 2022 and 2025, MENA Rights Group has documented the unlawful extraditions of four individuals: Khalaf al-Romaithi, Hassan al-Rabea, Salman al-Khaldy, and Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi. Currently, one individual is facing an imminent risk of extradition: Ahmed Kamel.
Ahmed Kamel is an Egyptian national currently detained in Saudi Arabia, where he had been living for a decade. In reprisal for peacefully protesting during the Arab Spring in Cairo in 2011 and 2014, Kamel faces imminent extradition to Egypt, where he may be subjected to human rights abuses including torture.
Despite their prohibition, Arab states continue to request and fulfil politically motivated extraditions, weaponising domestic laws which conflate peaceful criticism and human rights activism with terrorism or threats to state security.
Furthermore, the AIMC’s legal framework makes no reference to international human rights standards. More specifically, it fails to mention the principle of non-refoulement, enshrined in article 3 of the UN Convention against Torture, which provides that individuals must not be extradited to a country where they would face torture.
UN Special Procedures mandate holders have raised concerns over the AIMC’s operations in a communication addressed to the Arab League, notably raising the impossibility for individuals to access their criminal file and challenge their arrest warrant. However, the UN experts have been provided with no response, and the Council has yet to undertake any reform.
As the AIMC continues to facilitate grave human rights violations across the Arab region, substantial change is required to ensure peaceful dissidents and human rights defenders are not at risk of transnational repression.
The undersigned organisations therefore urge the AIMC to immediately halt its facilitation of politically motivated extraditions, and undertake urgent reforms, in consultation with civil society, to align its legal framework and systems with international human rights law.
Signatories:
- MENA Rights Group
- Egyptian Front for Human Rights
- Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
- ESOHR
- Cedar Centre for Legal Studies
- Law and Democracy Support Foundation – LDSF
- Middle East Democracy Center (MEDC)
- ALQST for Human Rights
- Egyptian Human Rights Forum ( EHRF)
- Rights Realization Centre / مركز تفعيل الحقوق
- Salam for Democracy and Human Rights
- Najda for Human Rights
- Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center (EDAC)
- HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
https://menarights.org/en/articles/aimc-must-end-its-role-transnational-repression-say-ngos
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.