A top Chinese Security official has been appointed to the executive committee of interpol. The move has been celebrated by the state backed Beijing media. However, the move was widely criticized over concerns that the position may be exploited by the Chinese authorities.

Hu Binchen, a Deputy Director General at China’s Ministry of Public Security, will join the committee after years of intense campaigning from Beijing to have him appointed.

However, it is widely believed that Hu has been heavily involved in Operation Fox Hunt, through which Beijing hunts down dissidents in foreign countries and forces them back to China.

“The government of the People’s Republic of China has repeatedly abused the Interpol red notice to persecute dissidents in exile,” said in a letter from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which has 50 signatories. “By electing Hu Binchen to the executive committee, the general assembly would be giving a green light to the [Chinese] government to continue their misuse of Interpol and would place the tens of thousands of Hongkonger, Uygur, Tibetan, Taiwanese and Chinese dissidents living abroad at even graver risk.”

Read More: Fox News