Political refugees from Russia and Belarus are in the center of a new scandal.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes that the main characters of the “Bolotnaya case” Mikhail Maglov, Filipp Galtsov, Aleksei Devyatov and his wife Jenny Curpen published a statement in which they described the discriminatory policy of Ukraine’s authorities in relation to the citizens of Russia and Belarus. Russians were denied the refugee status. The decision of the Ukrainian side was motivated by the fact that the petitioners did not fall under the description provided by the Law of Ukraine “On Refugees and Persons in Need of Additional Protection.” Earlier, citizens of Belarus stated the same thing.
What kind of evidence do Ukrainian officials need to comprehend the political motivation of the so-called “Bolotnaya case”? It is a deliberate persecution of the opposition rallies activists at the Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Avenue in Moscow, as well as the participants of the following rallies. The nature of the Belarusian government and its attitude towards the opposition is well-known. What evidence of prosecution do Ukrainian officials need? Do they not even read Ukrainian newspapers or watch TV, even the pro-governmental channels?
The first possible explanation of such actions of Ukrainian officials is their unwillingness to complicate the already strained relations with the neighbors.
However, the international experience suggests just the opposite. Even countries with regimes, far from democratic, accepted refugees, including political ones. Franco’s Spain provided status of political refugees to people from the neighboring Portugal, which was ruled by Salazar back then.
The level of relations, even between allied countries, cannot affect fundamental things. France and England were allies of tsarist Russia at the beginning of the last century. However, political opponents from Mensheviks and Bolsheviks to Socialist-Revolutionaries were accepted with an appropriate status.
The great Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen was forced to flee to Japan first, and then ended up in England. But even there he was not left alone. The agents of the Chinese government kidnapped Sun Yat-sen in London and hid him at the Chinese Embassy while waiting for a ship. Imminent death was waiting for the revolutionary in his homeland. At the time, relations between London and Beijing were the closest. The Chinese government carried out a pro-English course and extended significant privileges to British companies. The Foreign Office was not too enthusiastic about Sun Yat-sen’s being in London, since he was against the pro-British policy of the incumbent Chinese government.
Sun Yat-sen dropped a note out of his cell window with a plea for help. A woman picked it up and brought it to the police. Foreign minister Lord Robert Salisbury issued an order to give Sun Yat-sen back. After Chinese diplomats refused to do so, the police violated the extraterritoriality of the embassy, made a search there, and released Sun Yat-sen, the future president of the Republic of China and founder of the Kuomintang party (Chinese National People’s Party).
When explaining his actions at the parliament, Salisbury noted that the rights to life and freedom are the cornerstone, the foundation of Britain. England gave refuge to a Chinese migrant, and no one, not even a friendly government, is allowed to encroach upon a cornerstone.
In general, associating relations between states with internationally recognized human rights and Ukraine’s obligations is a fundamentally harmful and dangerous philosophy. Interstate politics is rather unsteady and fickle, while the basic human rights are permanent and immutable. The fear of upsetting a neighbor reveals a lack of independence of Ukraine’s foreign policy, absence of its strategic guidelines. If it comes to gas prices, we are not really afraid and act rather decisively, but when it comes to granting asylum to political refugees, Ukraine is all of a sudden timid.
The Baltic countries, Lithuania in particular, are not afraid to anger Belarus. Unhappy as Minsk is about it, the two neighbors continue trading, regardless of all the problems.
Our own political refugees find asylum in the Czech Republic and Italy, but it does not seem that Kyiv’s relations with Prague or Rome are worsening. Then what are we afraid of?
It looks like we should not believe that the government is afraid of spoiling the relations with Russia. In fact, the problem is our very elite. Our government does not need democratically-minded political migrants from Russia and Belarus. Firstly, champions of such ideas and values are not very popular with our leadership, so both domestic and foreign ones are rejected. The regime has to put up with domestic dissidents to a certain extent, but tries to get rid of the foreign ones, whatever it takes. For example, using a lack of application forms for the refugee status or a lack of interpreters as a pretext. It is impossible to find an official in Ukraine who would not understand the Russian language. It is obvious that migrants from Russia and Belarus speak this language well enough for our officials to understand them.
Secondly, the Ukrainian leadership is afraid that in revenge Russia could start taking in Ukrainian migrants. Strange, but even if Lukashenka is not very worried about it, what should Yanukovych be afraid of? One should search high and low to find Ukrainian political refugees who would rush to Russia for protection.
Thirdly, it is already well known that Moscow and Minsk are not to be feared. Instead, using assertive language will be much more effective in communication with them. If we accept political refugees from there, Russian and Belarusian authorities will start respecting Ukraine and treating it accordingly. By the way, it will give practical results, including those in economics.
So, we will earn respect of our neighbors, both close and distant. It will only serve the cause of signing the Association Agreement in Vilnius, because that is what we are committed to, at least so we say. It is time to act.
By Yurii RAIKHEL
COMMENTARIES
“UKRAINE VIOLATED INTERNATIONAL LAW”
Dmytro HROISMAN, human rights activist and coordinator of Vinnytsia Human Rights Group:
“Assignment of refugee status is not a group act but an individual act. The person who asks for asylum must prove several theses. First, this person has to prove that his concern about the threat of persecution, in case if he returns to the country of origin, is well-grounded. Second, he has to prove that he does not fall under the exclusion criteria: committing serious criminal offences, crimes against humanity. The burden of providing the proof lies on the person. It is wrong to make general statements about discrimination of all Russian refugees. I know the Russians who have this status. They received the refugee status not in the recent years, but they live here now.
“Why not only the asylum seekers, but also human rights activists who keep track of these cases believe that Ukraine unlawfully refuses to protect such people? We should note one thing here: protection of refugees is not the right of the state, manifestation of mercy of humanitarian policy because it is not the duty of the state. Granting asylum is, indeed, the right of the state, but recognition of a person as a refugee or a person in need of extra protection is the state’s duty, carried out in accordance with the Convention on the Status of Refugees adopted in 1951. At least in those cases that have been named, the state of Ukraine unlawfully denied the refugee status to persons fearing persecution due to their political position and peaceful protection of their rights having reasonable grounds for that. Ukraine has violated the international law by denying such people.
“The reason for such actions is very simple and yet complex in terms of its solution. It can be explained by the wrong mentality of government employees, who deal with asylum issues. The mistake is that they consider an act of granting asylum as a political act. They take into account the political aspects of making individual decisions. This is completely wrong in terms of international law. Officials do not have to think about how Russia or any other country would react to exercising of the human obligations of the state to protect another person. Government employees in Ukraine do not fully understand this. There are many government agencies, such as the Security Service, Ministry of Interior, that are not relevant to the issue of recognition of an individual a refugee, influence such decisions.
“Unfortunately, the executive officials who make similar decisions often draw an analogy between the actions of a person outside the country and while being on its territory. If they see that people who come out on peaceful protests in Ukraine get beaten, mutilated, illegally drawn to administrative and criminal responsibility, and the same actions take place in the Russian Federation, the question arises: how can these people protect Russian citizens seeking asylum, if citizens of their own country are treated the same. This attitude blocks decision-making process in case of a group of Russian people, for example.
“Formally, the Ukrainian legislation is fully in line with European standards. Ukraine ratified the relevant conventions on the status of refugees, in particular the Law of Ukraine on Refugees and Those Who Need Additional or Temporary Protection, complies with the UN standards. Therefore, the laws are good, the problem lies in their application.”
“IN THE ECONOMIC SPHERE UKRAINE ATTEMPTS TO DEFEND ITS INTERESTS, IN THE HUMANITARIAN SPHERE IT ACTS QUITE OPPOSITE”
Hryhorii PEREPELYTSIA, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor at Kyiv National University:
“It all depends on what motivation people provide when they seek asylum in Ukraine. Recently, Ukraine really sharply limited the granting of asylum for purely political motivation. This happened due to the fact that, on the one hand, the official Kyiv does not want to spoil its relations with Russia, trying to use it as a ‘nice gesture’ to normalize relations with Russia and to solve primarily economic issues. We see that not only the refugees are denied of political asylum, but people from the humanitarian sphere as well. In the economic sphere Ukraine attempts to defend its interests, in the humanitarian sphere it acts quite opposite. In fact, all the questions that were related with protection of our interests in the humanities are not on the agenda of Ukrainian foreign policy in relations with Russia. Another motivation stems from the fact that the current government in Ukraine painfully reacts to granting political asylum to individual members of the Ukrainian opposition. Here we can mention the scandal with the Czech Republic last year. Obviously, granting of political asylum by other countries affects the position of denying political asylum to foreign citizens.
“Today we see that democratic standards are pushed away from the list of priorities. On the contrary, they become the cause for such negative reaction. It is clear that the highest priority now is the establishment of very close relations with undemocratic regimes, especially those neighboring Ukraine – Russia and Belarus.”
Interviewed by Anna CHEREVKO, Ihor SAMOKYSH, The Day
