The information disseminated via notices concerns individuals wanted for serious crimes, missing persons, unidentified bodies, possible threats, prison escapes, and criminals' modus operandi.
For example, a notice will not be published if it violates Interpol's constitution, which forbids the organisation from undertaking activities of a political, military, religious, or racial character.
[1][4] The International notice system was created in 1946 as Interpol re-established itself after World War II in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Cloud.
Fair Trial chief executive Jago Russell stated, "Interpol has been allowing itself to be used by oppressive regimes across the world to export the persecution of human rights defenders, journalists and political opponents".
There have been concerns about conflict of interest as well as in March 2017, the UAE donated $54 million to Interpol, which roughly equalled the contributions by all other member states.
Many of its members have poor human rights records and corrupt, undemocratic governments and have been accused of abusing the red notice networks for political purposes.
Recent examples before al-Araibi's case include the detention of Russian activist Petr Silaev in Spain and Algerian human rights lawyer Rachid Mesli in Italy.
[26] The CCF's most notable function, however, is to consider legal petitions submitted by individuals requesting the revocation of red notices.
Such petitions, as a rule, only succeed when a red notice is deemed to infringe on Interpol's Constitution either because it offends the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or because it was issued for political, religious, military, or racial reasons.