Today many persecuted Russian Muslims, opposition members, civil activists and other victims of the Kremlin’s political repression breathed a sigh of relief. The Russian representative in Interpol, Major General of the Russian Interior Ministry Anatoly Prokopchuk, failed to become the new head of this organization — he was outvoted by South Korean Kim Jong-Yang with 98 votes against 64. Of course, it would be naive to think that life will get better for all these categories now. Interpol will continue to operate as it always has: Russian law enforcement agencies will continue to send requests for international search and arrest of Russians accused of «extremist» and «terrorist» crimes, or falsely charged with general crimes. And Prokopchuk will remain as the vice-president of Interpol, as he is now.
But at least the situation will not be worse than it is now, which could have happened if he had been elected. According to political exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky, «there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other people who could become targets if Prokopchuk is elected for political and economic reasons. Khodorkovsky also recalled that it was through Prokopchuk that the Kremlin sought his extradition from London to Russia in 2015. In his opinion, his notoriety helped prevent this, but people who do not have the same capabilities as him may be powerless against such persecution.
Marina Litvinenko, the widow of political martyr Alexander Litvinenko, and opposition leader Alexei Navalny strongly opposed Prokopchuk’s election.
A massive international campaign was launched to stop «Interpolnasha,» involving many state officials, politicians, human rights activists, and the media. David Clark, former special advisor to the British Foreign Office, explicitly described the nature of the threat of turning Interpol into a tool of Kremlin political terror: «Prokopchuk poses a problem because he was the person in the Russian Interior Ministry who was responsible for fabricating many of the ‘red notices’ submitted during his service in the ministry.» In the Interpol system, a «red notice» submitted by the Interior Ministry of a participating country is a request for international arrest, which, according to many experts, is actively used by Russian law enforcement agencies for purposes of political repression.
Our joy is their sorrow. In this case, the joy of those persecuted by Russian law enforcement agencies, dissidents or those at risk of becoming dissidents, is the sorrow of their persecutors. For example, Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy chairman of the Federation Council’s International Committee, protested against the «brazen US interference in the election of the president of this international structure». Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also expressed regret that Prokopchuk was not elected.
Well, for this in particular, we all owe the Americans a great debt of gratitude. There are many serious questions about their activities in other areas, especially concerning Muslims, but in this particular case the interests of Western opponents of increasing Russian influence objectively coincide with ours.