Ethnic Minorities may face Deportation

UNCHR alert

Ethnic Minorities may face Deportation

9 April 2002

More than 13,000 people of Meskhetian ethnicity are in danger of deportation from the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia under a new decree issued by local authorities, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said Friday. The agency expressed concern that the development "may lead to the deterioration of the situation and increase discrimination towards the Meskhetian population settled in the region."

Meskhetians, a largely Muslim group from southwestern Georgia, were deported in 1944 to Uzbekistan and faced forced displacement again in 1989 because of interethnic violence in the region. There are between 11,000 and 16,000 Meskhetians in the Krasnodar Krai region, but most have been unable to gain permanent legal status. Only a few thousand have been able to settle there legally, UNHCR said.

The new decree is aimed at rounding up "illegal migrants," but UNHCR said Meskhetians in Krasnodar Krai are Russian citizens. "The Meskhetians are former citizens of the USSR who were legally residing on the territory of the Russian Federation at the time of the adoption of the 1992 Citizenship Law. On several individual instances, the courts of law, including the Russian Federation Supreme Court, have upheld this position," said Jean-Paul Cavalieri, lawyer and head of UNHCR's Moscow office (UNHCR release, April 5).

Statement of the Human Rights Centre MEMORIAL concerning persecutions of the Meskhetian Turks and other ethnic minorities in the Krasnodar region of the Russian Federation

The Human Rights Centre MEMORIAL expresses deep indignation and concern with the campaign of persecutions launched by the authorities of Krasnodar region against the Meskhetian Turks and other ethnic minorities and with the preparations to their deportation.

In the winter of 2001/2002, the authorities in the Krasnodar region employed hunger as the main tool of squeezing the Turks out of the region. The district authorities have actually imposed a ban for the Turks on leasing land from local collective farms or private persons and all the leases with the Turks were cancelled for the season of 2002. Employment as well as trade at local bazaars are also prohibited for the Meskhetians. The Turks are penalised for 'illegal' occupation of plot of land and houses which were purchased 12-13 years ago. The local courts sieze property of the families which cannot pay those administrative fines. The Turks have been actually denied access to justice; the judges refuse to put Meskhetian lawsuits on trial under various arbitrary pretexts. The Meskhetians are subjected to massive passport checks, harassment and violent actions of the police and paramilitary units of the 'Cossacks'; they are fined for absence of registration which they were denied.

The regional Legislative Assembly has adopted the new Decree 'On the Additional Measures to Decrease Tensions in Inter-ethnic Relations in the Areas of Compact Settlement of Meskhetian Turks Temporarily Residing on the Territory of Krasnodar Region' # 1363 of 20 February which confirmed a special status of the Turks as such. Another Decree 'On the Measures to Strengthen State Control over Migration and on Administrative Eviction of the Persons Illegally Staying on the Territory of the Krasnodar Region' # 1381-? of 27 March 2002 ? envisages deportation of the people without local residence registration. Recently, there have been attempts to evict several families of the Meskhetian Turks, Armenians and Kurds. Actually, persecutions of ethnic minorities are rapidly evolving into ethnic cleansing.

On 18 March, the Krasnodar governor Alexander Tkachev addressing the meeting of regional and municipal officials promised to create 'unbearable conditions' for 'illegal migrants' and to start their organised expulsion. Alexander Tkachev also said that the position and plans of the regional administration were completely supported by the Russian President. The federal authorities have not reacted in any to this statement as well as to the unlawful actions of the Krasnodar government. Moreover, the meeting of the Russian President with the governor of the Krasnodar region in Sochi on 5 April did not display any disagreement between them. Therefore, the Russian federal government assumes responsibility for the ongoing in the Krasnodar region.

We demand from the federal authorities that they employ all available means to stop the escalating ethnic cleansing in the Krasnodar region and to institute criminal proceedings against the people responsible for it.

We demand redress of the violated rights for the Meskhetian Turks as well as for the other citizens of the former USSR who live in Russia from before the Soviet Union's dissolution. We insist on their registration by place of actual residence, acknowledgement of their Russian citizenship and elimination of discrimination against them.

We call on everybody, especially Russian law-enforcement agencies, mass-media, public associations and political organisations, to condemn the persecutions of Meskhetian Turks and other ethnic minorities in the Krasnodar region and to demand from the Russian authorities criminal proceedings against the perpetrators and redress violated rights of the Meskhetians and other ethnic minorities.