The war in Chechnya has been going on for the second decade and much changed in this period. European politicians have begun a gradual change of their approach to the Chechen military conflict long ago; first calling it as an internal Russian one, and in recent times we hear that the war has already been completed. 

At such moments, we fall just puzzled, trying to explain to ourselves where flows of Chechnya refugees run from, which, among other things, the Chechen Diaspora in Norway holds regular talks with. Also it is unclear where and why the Chechens living in Chechnya disappear to, as it evidenced by a number of independent reports on the situation in the Chechen Republic. Also, can not be explained humiliations, persecutions, imprisonments, tortures and murders of relatives, friends and people just took any contact with the participants of the resistance. Many of such cases are registered and included into the official reports of independent human rights organizations such as Memorial, the Helsinki Committee, Civil Support, and others. 

The annual, joint report of Human Rights Centre "Memorial" and Committee "Civic Assistance" on the situation of the immigrants from the Chechen Republic (15.01.2010.) shows that only in 2009 year, in the territory of Chechnya 90 people kidnapped and disappeared, and these data cover only 30% of the territory of the Chechen Republic. Constant persecutions and well-known destruction of human rights activists, who also nobody has suffered deserving punishment for, and all mentioned above is absolute proof of a long way to the end of the war and justice in the territory of the Chechen Republic. 

During the Chechen conflict there were many outstanding personalities, activists, both in Russia and in other parts of the world who independently spoke the truth, fairly blamed the Russian authorities in multiple human rights violations and failure to comply with its international obligations. Many of them paid for it by their lives. In this background, it is too much strange to observe how some European deputies turn a blind eye or even justify Russia’s outrages, through their words and actions with refugees from Chechnya. 

Today in Norway, we witness a situation in which the Norwegian authorities are increasingly deport the Chechen refugees directly into Russia. This practice is not fully applies to the refugees from Chechnya yet. However many independent experts believe that these "testing" deports, which some European countries try to fasten, as a regular practice in relation to the Chechen refugees, will finally lead to the gradual disappearing of the deportees. We must not and may not allow letting this happen! 

Most of the refugees, who turned to the Chechen diaspora in Norway, after receiving a waiver of UDI (Directorate of Immigration), are persecuted by the Russian authorities on the basis of family ties with gunmen. Many of the applicants have already received waivers not only from UDI, but also from UNE (Appeals Commission on Immigration). As you probably know, since 2001 year, the practice of kidnapping or repressive actions against relatives of gunmen has become widespread. At the beginning only the family members of the resistance participants were captured, but today to be a relative of a person having or having had links with gunmen, or let themselves "dissent" is a reason enough to be subjected to harassments, arrests, humiliations, tortures and so on. 

We, the Chechen Diaspora in Norway, are too concerned about the increasing trend of forced deportations of Chechens into Russia. Under the current situation in the Chechen Republic, the Norwegian authorities do not have all the possibilities to fully assess the situation in the Chechen Republic and thus can not be confident in the safety of the deportees after their return to homeland. 

Therefore, in June, 23 we applied to the head of the Norwegian Parliament with the request of discontinuance of forced deportation of the Chechen refugees into the territory of the Russian Federation and their return on strictly voluntary basis. In the nearest future we hope to get an answer from the leadership of the Norwegian Parliament, which will be published in our website. 
Thanks to all who could come, and join our request. 


Leadership of the Chechen Diaspora in Norway

Press-Release ChRI

ChechenCenter.info