Refugee Essay on Inside Out and Back Again
The name of the text's character was inverse at his asking.
Ahmad has been a refugee since he was built-in. As a Palestinian, whose grandparents left their native land for Syria afterwards the 1948 state of war with Israel, he has lived with refugee status from birth, though he was built-in and bred in Syrian arab republic. Palestinian refugees are not immune to have Syrian citizenship, though they enjoyed similar rights and responsibilities as Syrians, in society to "keep their original citizenship" (presuming they can get dorsum to Palestine one day).
When the civil war bankrupt out in Syrian arab republic in 2011, Ahmad, like his grandparents, had to seek refuge, as the country that hosted his ancestors turned into a unsafe state of war zone. "I don't want to exist killed or to impale – that's even worse," Ahmad says. In 2012, he sought asylum in Russian federation – and this path is not for the faint-hearted.
Unwelcoming place
Migration center in the Moscow Region.
Kirill Zykov/Moskva Bureau
"Russia doesn't want to have refugees," Yevgeny Yastrebov, a consultant on migration issues at Civic Assistance Committee, says in an interview. He knows what he is talking about: Civic Assist has helped refugees, migrants and displaced persons since 1990, cooperating with the UN Refugee Agency and providing aviary seekers with legal, medical and educational help.
Legally, the Russia, interim in accord with the UN 1951 Refugee Convention and the federal police "On Refugees", can grant asylum seekers with either refugee status (permanent), or temporary asylum, which must be prolonged each year.
"Applicants are recognized as refugees in instance they accept concerns of becoming victims of persecution on the grounds of race, belief, citizenship, ethnicity, membership in a social group or political behavior… and cannot relish the protection of their country of citizenship," says Russian Interior Ministry'due south official website link in Russian). In fact, however, it is very difficult to get refugee status in Russia.
In 2018, for instance, only thirty people were granted refugee status (33 in 2017, 39 in 2016). Generally, officially recognized refugees in Russia as of January ane, 2019, amounted to 572 people – quite few for such a large land. As for the people granted temporary aviary, there were 76,000 of them in 2018, merely with the exception of most 75,000 Ukrainians - generally coming from the war-torn region of Donbass – there were only 1,819 people with temporary asylum status.
"Information technology's almost incommunicable to become refugee condition, every bit for temporary asylum status, this is also granted very rarely," says Yastrebov. "And if a person already enjoys temporary asylum, in that location is no guarantee at all that information technology will be prolonged." Ahmad knows this well.
Change of heed
"I've been visiting Russia since 2006, long earlier the war, equally a seasonal worker, getting brusque-term visas," says Ahmad. He speaks relatively adept Russian, his uncle and blood brother live in Moscow. In 2012, his relatives who remained in Syria, in Aleppo, gave him a slice of advice: "Don't come back, stay in that location. It is as well dangerous in Syria now, you can be killed." So, when his visa expired, he applied for temporary asylum.
After three months of immigration officials demanding more and more than documents, finally, he succeeded. "For three years, they were prolonging asylum and I lived in Moscow. My family unit helped me, and when in that location was a possibility I worked – selling kebabs or some other stuff. Little money, only better than nix," Ahmad recalls. In 2016, even so, everything changed.
The migration service refused to prolong Ahmad's asylum. "They asked me: 'When are you going back?' I said: 'I don't know, the state of war is nonetheless on, when things at-home down a bit, probably.' And they refused." With the help of Borough Assistance Committee, Ahmad appealed the verdict – it took a lot of nervus because at this stage immigration officials were actually harassing him.
Syrians – out
"1 time, I came wearing a beard, and they demanded me to shave information technology off. What's wrong with my bristles?!" Ahmad recalls with resentment. "I've seen Russians with longer beards than mine… even Lenin had a beard, afterwards all! The other time, they just said to us: you will be at the end of the line, we are dealing with Ukrainians first. I retrieve they were using every excuse to postpone dealing with me."
For well-nigh a yr, Ahmad was appealing the verdict in different courts but lost. Many people from Syrian arab republic seeking refuge (or trying to prolong it) in Russian federation had the same experience. For instance, in June 2018, the Supreme Courtroom of Russia refused to address complaints from 10 Syrian citizens who had been rejected asylum prolongation.
"Events happening on Syrian soil tin be qualified every bit a counter-terrorist functioning, non a full-scale state of war with a pronounced frontline," thus, being in Syrian arab republic doesn't endanger people's lives, Kommersant quotes the court's verdict. (Russia Across asked the Russian Interior Ministry, which is in charge of asylum seekers, to provide united states with a commentary on refugee policy in Russia, but no comment was made).
Basically, this ways that Syrians are not accustomed in Russia anymore, Yevgeny Yastrebov concludes. "In one case, I heard an official in the migration middle shouting loudly in the hall: 'We don't requite asylum to Syrians! The state of war is over, and then go habitation!' without even looking through each person's case."
Ahmad, despite the difficulties he had to overcome, is comparably lucky: his wife and daughter left Syrian arab republic using a dissimilar path – through Turkey, Greece and Hungary to Germany – settling downwardly in Berlin, where they were granted refuge. His wife managed to provide him with a family unit reunification visa, so Ahmad was able to bring together them in Germany (for a couple of months, he had to live in Russia illegally, risking being deported).
"Perhaps I will miss Moscow," he says. "A lot of things are great here – the city is so clean, the metro is smashing… but, you lot know, I am not welcome hither". In Baronial 2019, he left Russia for expert.
What to exercise if you lot seek refuge in Russia?
A line to the UFMS, an organisation that used to exist in charge of migrants and refugees (before that office was transferred to the interior ministry).
AP
Non everyone among asylum seekers is as lucky every bit Ahmad: some people, in case the migration service refuses aviary, must choose between living in the country illegally (which means constant fear of displacement) or going back to the countries they ran abroad from, in some cases putting their lives in danger. That, however, doesn't mean they will escape deportation. For example, in early July 2019, Bozobeyidu Batoma, a denizen of Togo, who claimed he would be tortured and killed in example of returning to his homeland, was deported to Togo. Afterwards that, his tracks were lost.
Obtaining refugee status or temporary aviary in Russia, as Yastrebov believes, is close to winning the lottery: very rare and logically inexplicable.
"I've seen then many cases when people with compelling documents were refused aviary. But this year, 1 Sudanese told me that he was only asked in the migration service: 'Do yous play football?' He said 'Yes" and they granted him refuge." It's hard to find whatever logic here – just, over again, such "happy" cases, while rare, practice happen
Russia is not the best identify to seek asylum, to say the least, Yastrebov believes. Merely, of course, many asylum seekers don't get to cull: fearing for their lives, they are eager to flee anywhere, even to a country where they face severe difficulties.
For them, the primary advice from man rights advocates is to human activity legally, co-ordinate to the official procedures. Apply to migration service every bit before long every bit possible (amend if you exercise information technology with the help of a translator and a lawyer). Provide the migration service with every possible document that proves you really need refugee status / aviary (legally, yous don't accept to, but de facto that gives you lot more than chances). If you are rejected asylum, entreatment in the courts at different levels – even if they refuse the entreatment this will gain you some fourth dimension to remain legally in Russia.
Also, try to find a way to provide and care for yourself, because the land doesn't give assist to aviary seekers, and information technology even doesn't give them the opportunity to work legally. Finally, promise for the best – which is amongst the few things refugees are legally allowed to practise anywhere in the globe.
If using any of Russian federation Beyond'southward content, partly or in full, e'er provide an active hyperlink to the original cloth.
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Source: https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/330927-refugees-in-russia-asylum
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