Court allowed for Ukraine to expel refugee, who faces persecution for political beliefs in Tajikistan

Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal upheld the refusal to grant refugee status to Tajikistan citizen who is persecuted at homeland and requested asylum in Ukraine.

The Human Rights Information Centre learnt this from coordinator of the No Borders human rights project Maksym Butkevych, who acted as a witness at a trial. According to him, court dismissed the appeal of Tajik activist, thus supporting the decision of State Migration Service to refuse to grant a refugee status to 22 year old Abdusamad Amirov. According to the decision, Amirov must be deported to Tajikistan.

“Amirov is a member of the oppositional nonviolent organization “Group 24”, which in 2014 was banned in Tajikistan after the criticism of the current authorities and declared as “extremist organization”. Members of the organization are persecuted after the ban: founder of the organization was shot down on the streets of Istanbul in front of his family, several activists were attacked, kidnapped and deported to Tajikistan, or simply disappeared. Members of the organization were sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment and those who are abroad are hunted by special services of Tajikistan. In case of return to the homeland, Amirov can be threatened with tortures and long imprisonment”, – said Butkevych.

According to him, the Court of Appeal announced its decision in mere minutes after hearing the testimony about the potential threats that refugee can face after the deportment.

“I don’t know how court could consider and assess the available evidence and make a deliberate decision, it is as if the decision was prepared in advance”, said Butkevych.

Admirov lawyer’s informed that they will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in order to suspend the deportation procedure. Previously, European Court has repeatedly prohibited the forced deportation to Tajikistan, assessing the risk of torture in the country as “very likely”.

As a reminder, September 2016, the Security Service of Ukraine forcibly deported from Ukraine Russian citizen Aminat Babayeva, who requested asylum in Ukraine.

In addition, this fall, Russian refugee Sergey Anisiforov received from the State Migration Service of Ukraine the third for the past two years denial of refugee status in Ukraine, despite the fact that his right to receive the asylum had been approved by the Ukrainian courts.