Solidarity with OTHERS has revealed fresh evidence proving Turkey’s abuse of Interpol systems to pursue political opponents abroad. An official letter from the Turkish Ministry of Justice to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor, now disclosed, admits that Ankara falsely marked dissidents’ passports as “lost” or “stolen” in Interpol’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database, not to report genuine cases but to track their movements at border crossings. The admission confirms long-standing concerns that Turkey has deliberately misused Interpol, alongside repeated attempts to issue politically motivated Red Notices that were rejected by Interpol and the Commission for the Control of Files (CCF).

We also highlighted how this tactic forms part of a wider campaign of transnational repression, including 107 known abductions of Turkish nationals from countries such as Kenya, Malaysia, Moldova, and Kosovo. The case of Selahaddin Gülen, abducted in Kenya in May 2021 despite a local court rejecting his extradition, demonstrates Ankara’s disregard for international law. As Solidarity with OTHERS, we are calling on Interpol and the wider international community to resist unlawful demands and remain vigilant against Turkey’s manipulation of global policing mechanisms for political persecution.