Wife Appoints Lawyers
LONDON, Oct. 25, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wife of Mr Hongwei Meng, the President of INTERPOL who went missing one month ago, issued the following statement:
On 25th September 2018, my husband sent me a WhatsApp. It said, “wait for my call”. It is now one month later, and I am still waiting for that call. He has vanished. I am scared for my husband’s safety. I have so many questions, but no answers: Is my husband still alive? If so, where is he being held? Who is holding him? How is he being treated? My children are scared. Every day, they ask me, “mummy, when is daddy back? I want to talk to daddy.” My heart breaks when I see their sad eyes. I don’t know what to tell them. I am desperate.
Whilst President of INTERPOL, my husband disappeared. In a speech to INTERPOL last year in Beijing, my husband said that “so long as justice is on our side, there won’t be a battle that can’t be won”. I am now asking China to be just. I am asking China to respect our family’s fundamental human rights. I am appealing to President Xi to treat our family in a way that he would want his family to be treated: to let me know whether my husband is still alive; if he is still alive, to let me know where my husband is being kept, to let me know how he is being treated, to let my husband meet his lawyers, and to let me and my children speak to my husband and their father.
Since my husband disappeared, people from all over the world have asked what they can do to help. Above all, I urge everyone to raise their voice in asking China to respect our family’s fundamental human rights.
My husband is an honest man and he has been recognised as such by the global police community for over 20 years. That is why, two years ago, China selected him to be its candidate to become the President of INTERPOL and why he was elected almost unanimously. His disappearance could not be for anything other than political reasons. Therefore, I have appointed an international legal team consisting of Marsigny Avocats (Paris) and Lindeborg Counsellors at Law (London).
Media contact:
E: morgan@pagefieldglobalcounsel.com
NOTES TO THE EDITOR
- Mr Hongwei Meng was elected to become the President of INTERPOL on 10th November 2016 (with 87% of the vote).
- Whilst President of INTERPOL, Mr Meng disappeared in China on 25th September 2018.
- Mrs Grace Meng has not heard from her husband since 25th September 2018.
- It appears that Mr Meng is being investigated pursuant to the Supervision Law of the People’s Republic of China, which came into effect on 20 March 2018.
- A state’s right to enforce its laws and to conduct investigations for that purpose comes with the responsibility to respect the fundamental rights of all concerned.
- The fundamental rights at stake include:
- The right of an individual to notify his family of his detention and the right of a family to respect for family life (rules of customary international law reflected in Article 17(2)(d) of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, respectively).
- The rights of children to have decisions made in their best interest (a rule of customary international law reflected in the Convention on the Rights of the Child).
- The right not to be arbitrarily detained (a rule of customary international law, reflected in Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 9(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).
- The right to have access to a lawyer during all stages of criminal proceedings, a fundamental component of the right to a fair trial (a rule of customary international law, reflected in Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).