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Развитие ситуации с турками-месхетинцами в Краснодарском крае. 2006-2007

Предлагаем вам краткий обзор положения турок-месхетинцев на английском языке. Recent Developments Concerning the Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai. 2006-2007   The group Meskhetian Turks are Muslims who speak the Turkish language. They are referred to as Ahiska Turks in Turkey and

Предлагаем вам краткий обзор положения турок-месхетинцев на английском языке.

Recent Developments Concerning the Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai. 2006-2007

 

 

The group

Meskhetian Turks are Muslims who speak the Turkish language. They are referred to as Ahiska Turks in Turkey and Mesktetian Turks in international organizations as well as in Western and Russian media and academia. They populated the region which is nowadays a borderland of Southern Georgia. This territory is part of the historical province known as Ahiska Bolgesi in Turkish and as Meskheti in Georgian, hence the group's names. In November 1944, Stalin ordered the forcible deportation of approximately 95,000 Moslems from Southern Georgia to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. During the expulsion this population was denoted as 'Turks, Kurds and Hemshins' and thus put on the list of other 'punished peoples' such as Crimean Tatars and Chechens who were viewed as unreliable during World War II. Most Meskhetians identify themselves as Turks; a small number consider themselves as 'Georgian Muslims' or belong to smaller ethnic minority groups. To date, Meskhetians have not been able to return en masse to the places where they had originally been deported from or to Georgia in general. [1]

In June 1989, Meskhetian Turks living in the Ferghana oblast (province) of Uzbekistan (then a part of the Soviet Union) became victims of large-scale violent clashes. All Turks living in Ferghana (approximately 17,000 people) were evacuated to Central Russia by order of the Soviet government. In the following year and a half, more than 70,000 Meskhetians were forced to leave other regions of Uzbekistan, fearing for their safety during continued ethnic tensions in the region. The Meskhetian Turks spontaneously began moving mainly to Russia and Azerbaijan; a small number migrated to Ukraine and Kazakhstan.[2]

Statistics

Currently, there are an estimated 350 - 400,000 Meskhetian Turks living around the globe, predominantly in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the United States, Ukraine, and Georgia. [3] In most places Meskhetian Turks are rural dwellers. The number of Meskhetian Turks resident in Russia is estimated as 70 - 80,000; a part of them live in Krasnodar Krai, a southern Russian region where they are persecuted directly and blatantly as a distinct minority group.

By 2004, the number of Meskhetians in Krasnodar Krai is estimated between 15,000 and 19,000.[4] Later on, about 21,000 Turks have applied for the resettlement to the U.S., and about 12,500 have left by the eve of 2007. However, these estimates must be confusing. First, different sources - the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) which administers the resettlement, the U.S. officials and the Krasnodar authorities - announce different figures. Secondly, it is unknown how many of the applicants were real residents of Krasnodar Krai and not of the neighbouring territories. Thus, it is unclear, how many Turks still reside in Krasnodar Krai. The Human Rights Centre Memorial and its partner NGOs in Krasnodar Krai roughly estimate the number of local Turks who did not apply for the resettlement as 5,000 and the amount of those Krasnodar residents who were denied admission as 2,000.

Racial discrimination in Krasnodar Krai.

Those Turks who fled Uzbekistan after the 1989 ethnic clashes for Krasnodar Krai, were denied in this place unlike in other Russian regions residence registration. Mandatory administrative registration by the place of residence (colloquially known as propiska) was a formal requirement in the Soviet Union and still remains such in the contemporary Russia. Overtly restrictive permission-based in the Soviet Union, it remains so in Russia in practice, but not in law; it is also a precondition for the exercise of almost all rights although no law stipulates this. The Russian constitution guarantees the right of every person legally resident the right to move and reside freely. However, the Krasnodar authorities and law enforcement bodies actively enforce the restrictive registration regime as a basic instrument of discrimination.

The Krasnodar authorities have arbitrarily refused to grant the Meskhetian Turks propiska, or registration by place of residence from 1989 onwards. Persons who lack permanent residence registration are virtually devoid of almost all rights. These people have limited rights to own property and to schooling, and virtually no rights to employment, to register their marriages, to obtain a passport or other personal identification, to healthcare, to enter public institutions of higher education, to receive proper birth certificates, and have no access to social security pensions earned during the Soviet period.[5]

Meskhetian Turks, like other people who did not have propiska by 1992 and in defiance of the Russian citizenship law of 1991 are not officially recognised as Russian nationals. Therefore, while qualifying for the 1991 Citizenship Law and being Russian citizens legally, most of them are de facto stateless. However, some Meskhetian Turks arrived in Krasnodar Krai before 1989, got propiska and later on were acknowledged citizens of Russia.

Many Meskhetian Turks from Krasnodar in the recent years got propiska and Russian passports in some neighbouring regions like Rostov province. By 2004, their number was estimated as 5,000, but the U.S. resettlement programme questioned these figures. The statistics of the International Organization for Migration reveal that out of a total 20,413 Meskhetian Turks who applied to the resettlement program, 6,149 persons (30.1%) was either stateless or held some form of foreign citizenship. 5,678 persons (28%) were stateless.[6] While actual residence of these people was and still is in Krasnodar Krai, they find themselves in a similar position as those Turks who are considered "stateless": they are often denied local residence registration, the right to work, property rights, health care etc.

Since 1992, the regional authorities in Krasnodar Krai repeatedly singled out the Meskhetian Turks by special normative acts as a distinct category and subjected them to discriminatory treatment. The Meskhetian Turks are regularly stopped, checked and fined by police. The Krasnodar authorities enable and encourage law enforcement agents and Cossack militias to conduct random street searches which can end in arrest and violent assault if the individual lacks the necessary proof of residence or citizenship. The Krasnodar government and local officials overtly and publicly recognised that their goal was to drive the Turks out of the region.

Communities in similar conditions

The deported population from Southern Georgia, as Stalin's decree stated, included three Turkish-speaking groups, namely Turks, Hemshins, and Kurds. The Kurds numbered 9,800 were deported from both Adjara and Meskheti regions (one half from each, roughly speaking). The total number of Hemshins in 1944 was 1,400; they all were displaced from Adjara. Hemshins and Kurds were forcibly deported to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in 1944 in the same way as the Meskhetian Turks were, fled similar threats of violence in Central Asia in 1989, and are subject to the same discrimination in Krasnodar Krai. The only difference is that there were no official acts overtly designating Kurds and Hemshins as subjects to a special discriminatory treatment.

Hemshins and Kurds share many characteristics with Meskhetian Turks and with each other. Hemshins and Kurds have received far less attention because as extremely small minorities, they have always been much less politically mobilized and organized than Meskhetian Turks. There are few if any Kurds originating from Meskheti in Krasnodar Krai; together Kurds from Adjara (usually referred to as Batumi Kurds or Batumi Kurmanj) and Hemshins amount to a maximum of 3,000 persons in the region.[7] The 2002 Russian Census revealed 1,019 Hemshins in Krasnodar Krai [8], and their real number might be higher. Batumi Kurds are not singled out in any registers; their number in the region is estimated as 1,000 - 1,500 people.

According to the assessment of Steve Swerdlow, an independent expert from the Berkeley Law School, over 35% of the Hemshin population possesses neither Russian citizenship nor permanent Krasnodar registration. About 31% are stateless persons (Soviet passport or no passport) and 1% is persons with some type of foreign citizenship (usually Kyrgyz or Kazakh).[9] Swerdlow's field research revealed that in nearly every household within the Hemshin community at least one member of every family has been unable to obtain either Russian citizenship or Krasnodar registration.

At present, a likewise and also significant percentage of Batumi Kurds in Krasnodar remain without Russian citizenship or Krasnodar registration, while their community as a whole are disproportionately subject to discriminatory treatment by Russian state agents and Cossack militias. Many Hemshins and Batumi Kurds report that members of their communities who have been successful in acquiring citizenship were only able to do so through bribery.

Many Hemshins and Batumi Kurds, like Meskhetian Turks, have relatives in Turkey. Some would like to immigrate to Turkey; some unsuccessfully applied for the resettlement to the U.S. [10]

Meskhetian departure to the USA

Since 2004, mass exodus to the United States within the special resettlement programme for the Meskhetian Turks remains the major factor affecting this group in Krasnodar Krai.

The United States designates groups of "special humanitarian concern" for Priority Two, or P-2, processing. The P-2 category, which encompasses the Meskhetian Turks of Krasnodar Krai includes specific groups (within certain ethnic, religious or similar groups) identified by the Department of State. Applicants who appear to have suffered persecution or to have a well-founded fear of future persecution and who otherwise fall within the United States' resettlement priorities meet with a U.S. immigration official to determine whether they qualify for admission as refugees.[11]

Initially, the programme covered the Meskhetian Turks who live in Krasnodar Krai without residence registration, allowed them to apply for refugee status and to get a package of social benefits on their resettlement to the U.S. The programme was administered by the IOM and was open on 1 February 2004. On 21 July 2004, the first group led by one the Turkish leader Tianshon Svanidze left Krasnodar for America. In June 2005, the IOM office stopped acceptance of applications. About 21,000 in total applied for the resettlement (a part of them actually did not reside in the krai) and about 12,500 left for the U.S. by the end of 2006.[12] Besides, about 2,400 persons were awaiting departure in 2007.[13] The operational criteria of eligibility were always shifting, and shortly after the programme's start those Meskhetians who had Russian passport and even had propiska in Krasnodar Krai were considered eligible.

In July 2007, the Krasnodar regional administration announced its own data on the number of Meskhetian Turks who had left for the U.S. from the Krai. The total number was 11,224 people, of them 546 departed in January - July 2007. 59% of the Meskhetians resettled from the region were documented Russian citizens and 41% were stateless.[14]

The Meskhetian Turks are being settled in more than 30 states of the U.S. These people regularly call their relatives remaining in Russia and report that they settle themselves quite well. Most adults got jobs, and children attend schools.[15]

Meskhetian Turks who were resettling to the U.S. got little if any help from the local Russian authorities, although the Krasnodar officials always welcomed and encourage any outflow of Meskhetians to other places. Worse, in 2004 and the first half of 2005 the local authorities created obstacles to the departing Turks in selling their immovable property and other property. In general, the federal and regional authorities decline any responsibility for the Meskhetian Turks and pay no attention that the Meskhetian flight is detrimental to the reputation of Russia.

In formal sense, the resettlement programme is accomplished. The IOM office in Krasnodar is considered closed, and the only one administrative section remaining is preoccupied with booking tickets for those Meskhetians who have already passed through all procedures and are awaiting departure. The resettlement is to be finalized by the end of 2007.

Refusals in admission to the U.S.

According to the resettlement programme's formal conditions, all Turks holding passports of Uzbekistan were denied the refugee status. Meanwhile, many Meskhetian Turks who had left Uzbekistan in 1989-90, later on were to take up the Uzbek passports to have any ID although they had actually lost all ties with this country. According to some estimates, these people make up around 10% of the Meskhetian community in Krasnodar. This is why some families have either to split or to decline the resettlement. In late 2005, the IOM office invited the holders of Uzbek passports to decline their citizenship of Uzbekistan to qualify the resettlement requirements, but when the people did this, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow confirmed refusals in admission.[16]

The second wave of mass refusals covered the Krasnodar Meskhetians in June-July 2006. The U.S. Department of State informed that the total number of refusals was 2,851 people. [17] The formal pretexts were either inability to confirm their permanent residence in Krasnodar Krai on 1 January 2004 or a lack of proof of their Meskhetian Turkish identity.

It is unclear how many of the Meskhetian Turks whose refugee status was denied are real residents of Krasnodar Krai. The Human Rights Novorossiysk Committee, the main advocacy centre dealing with Meskhetian Turks made an estimate that most of the refusals affected people residing in the Krai. They Committee officers consider most refusals they encountered as arbitrary and biased. Unfortunately, no decisions are made at the moment either in IOM or the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, and all complaints are examined in the Department of Homeland Security.

The refusals were shocking for the applicants, first of all, because, they all previously had been told in the IOM office that their papers had been in order. As a result of these refusals, many families were split: in some parents are admitted while the children are refused; one brother goes to the U.S. while the other siblings get trapped in Russia etc. Many Turks, having their applications processed, according to the IOM advice, sold their property and abandoned jobs; now these people have remained without any source of income and forced either to stay with their relatives or to spend their savings for renting a flat.

Nargiza Husainova (born 1965) arrived in Krasnodar Krai in 1989; over years she tried to document her Russian citizenship, but was in vain. Once she lost her old-type Soviet passport and become undocumented. Her two daughters are studying in a gymnasium in Novorossiysk, but they were not recognized as Russian citizens and denied passports although the younger one had been born in Russia and is a Russian national ex lege. In 2005, Nargiza and her relatives applied for the resettlement. In 2006, her mother, brother and other close relatives left for the U.S. while she and her daughters were denied the status. The pretext was that she did not prove her belonging to the Meskhetian community. The only proof for all applicants, however, was a certificate from an Meskhetian leader authorized to issue such written confirmations. Amazingly, nor she just presented this certificate to IOM, but the IOM and U.S. Embassy officers had no doubts that her mother and brothers were of Meskhetian origin. Nargiza has to rent a flat under a fear of police checks and fines. Previously, she and her new husband could earn some money but selling fruits on the local bazaar, but since 1 April 2007 retail trade is not allowed for foreigners in Russia.[18]

Therefore, the overall situation with Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai remains unresolved. The position of many applicants to the resettlement programme has even deteriorated; these people have their families separated, their property sold out, and their previous sources of income abandoned. Many have also lost their IDs and face poor perspectives of getting any legal status in Russia.

These people are subject to the same discriminatory treatment they have experienced for almost 18 years. In the first months of 2007, the local police has escalated passport and identity checks among the Meskhetian Turks. These people are fined for the lack of registration and denied the right to work while the authorities stopped again both residence and sojourn registration of Meskhetians in Krasnodar Krai.

Perspectives for the repatriation to Georgia. Adoption of the law on repatriation.

Many Meskhetian Turks activists have declared from 1950s until recently that their people would like to return back to Georgia and, in particular, to the place they had been deported from. Neither in the Soviet times nor during the Georgian independence were the deportees and their descendents allowed to repatriate. On its accession to the Council of Europe, Georgia had to make several commitments concerning the "Meskhetian population" in order to join. It had to adopt a legal framework permitting repatriation and integration, including acquisition of Georgian citizenship, for the Meskhetian population within two years (i.e. by April 2001); start the process of repatriation and integration within three years after its accession and complete the process of repatriation within twelve years (i.e. by 2011).[19]

In 1999, the newly created Georgian governmental commission on the repatriation of Meskhetians considered two draft laws on repatriation.[20] The both texts were rigidly criticized by the international organization involved and the Meskhetian activists themselves. The provisions offered if adopted would create a lot of red-tape obstacles for the applicants, envisaged an unlimited discretion of the Georgian authorities in determining who would be entitled to come to Georgia and who would not, and limited the rights of repatriates even putting them in a worse position than "ordinary" foreigners resident in the country. The work on the draft law was suspended and resumed only in November 2004, when the new governmental commission was created. The Commission put forward a new draft which had the same drawbacks as the previous ones. Despite the extensive involvement of the CoE and the European Centre for Minority Issues, in the drafting, the process was again suspended in autumn 2006.

Quite unexpectedly, the Georgian government presented in mid-June a radically different draft law. All the efforts put previously into the drafting have been in vain and all advice and consultations from the side of international organizations have being disregarded. The official strategy was to pass the law expediently and to avoid discussions and consultations. This goal was achieved, the law was adopted by the Georgian Parliament on 11 July, signed by the President on 27 July and made public officially on the same day.[21]

The Law of Georgia "On Repatriation of Persons Forcefully Sent into Exile from Georgian SSR by the Former USSR in the 40's of the 20th Century" actually is not about repatriation. People deported from southern Georgia in 1944 and their direct descendants may apply before the Georgian authorities, but the law does not determine what the status of "repatriate" means and what kinds of rights and duties entails. The only one clear consequence of the repatriate status is the holder's obligation to decline the existing citizenship within 6 months and to apply for Georgian citizenship within 1 year after acquiring the status. However, the Georgian citizenship is not guaranteed, and it must be granted on the basis of individual acts of the President.

The law keeps silence on the order and procedures of resettlement to Georgia, and it is unclear, how the issues concerning property, taxation and social security are to be resolved upon the repatriates' arrival at Georgia. The law also does not define the rights and duties of the repatriates coming to Georgia. The law does not entail financial or any other obligations of the Georgian state before the repatriates; it is unclear how many people are to get the repatriate status and within what time limit. It envisages unlimited discretion of the Georgian officials in any matter, but denies the right of repatriates to bring an action.

The scope of the law is rather limited. It excludes family members other than spouses or children of the repatriates and covers only those who reside in their country on legal ground - thus, people like Meskhetians in Krasnodar are ineligible. The law creates many obstacles to the people wishing to repatriate - they have to submit numerous papers and certificates, concerning their health conditions, income, criminal record etc. All the documents are to be submitted only in Georgian or English or with a Georgian or English translation confirmed notarially. Needless to say that very few Meskhetians are in command of Georgian or English; it is not easy to find a good translator into Georgian in Kazakhstan, Russia or elsewhere while Russian is the lingua franca both in Georgia and amongst Meskhetians. Besides, the applications can be submitted only from 1 January 2008 to 1 January 2009. And - last, but not least - the law contains no anti-discriminatory provisions and does not acknowledge repatriation as a right of Meskhetians.

Obvioyusly, the Georgian government's strategy is to reduce the number of applicants as much as possible, then to feel free to refuse admission to Georgia and bear no responsibility before those few Meskhetians who will be (maybe) allowed to come. Actually, this is the law on non-repatriation and one can hardly call it the fulfillment of Georgia's obligations before the CoE.

Many Meskhetian activists have repeatedly declared that Meskhetian Turks, or Meskhetians would like to repatriate, but they, like the international organizations involved virtually have no leverage to encourage Georgia to start a real process of resettlement. The future conditions of admission to Georgia and subsequent accommodation remain unclear, and no one can predict whether any would apply under the new law.


1. Aydingun, Aysegul. Creating, Recreating and Redefining Ethnic Identity: Ahiska/Meskhetian Turks in Soviet and Post-Soviet Contexts. Central Asian Survey. 2002. vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 185-197.

2. Osipov, A. Russian Experience of Ethnic Discrimination: Meskhetians in Krasnodar Region. Moscow: Zvenia, 2000; for more see the monograph to be issued by the European Centre for Minority Issues in 2007 "Between Integration and Resettlement: The Meskhetians" (forthcoming).

3. Meskhetian Turks. An Introduction to their History, Culture and Resettlement Experiences. By Aysegul Ayd?ngun, Cigdem Bal?m Harding, Matthew Hoover, Igor Kuznetsov, and Steve Swerdlow. Washington, D.C.: Cultural Orientation Resource Center, Center for Applied Linguistics, 2006, p.13. Available at: http://www.cal.org/co/publications/cultures/MTurks.html (accessed on 23 April 2007).

4. Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai in 2005. By Alexander Osipov. Available at: http://lists.delfi.lv/pipermail/minelres/2006-March/004491.html (accessed on 21 April 2007).

5. Osipov, A. supra note 2; Swerdlow, Steve. Understanding Post-Soviet Ethnic Discrimination and the Effective Use of U.S. Refugee Resettlement: The Case of the Turks of Krasnodar Krai. California Law Review, Dec.2006, Vol. 94. Issue 6, pp.1827-1878.

6. Durable Solutions for Ethnic Minorities in Krasnodar Krai: Challenges of Integration for Hemshins, Batumi Kurds, Yezids, and Abkhaz Georgians. By Steve Swerdlow for the International Organization of Migration (IOM). Unpublished manuscript. p.31.

7. Ibid., p.23.

8. Naseleniye po natsionalnosti i vladeniyu russkim yazykom po subyektam Rossiyskoy Federatsii. Vserossiiskaya perepis naseleniya 2002 goda. [Nationality composition of the population and Russian language proficiency by regions of the Russian Federation. The 2002 Census data] Available at: http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/TOM_04_03.xls (accessed on 23 April 2007).

9. Durable Solutions. Supra note 6, pp.4, 23, 30.

10. Field data of the Novorossiysk Human Rights Committee and the Human Rights Centre 'Memorial".

11. Martin, David. A. The United States Refugee Admissions Program: Reforms for a New Era of Refugee Resettlement. Available at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/36495.pdf), pp.64-66 (last accessed 23 April 2007).

12. Reported by the Novorossiysk Human Rights according to the data obtained from the IOM.

13. Personal communication with Maureen Greenwood-Basken, Advocacy Director for Europe and Central Asia, Amnesty International USA, May 2007.

14. The data provided by the Novorossiysk Human Rights Committee.

15. Meskhetian Turks. Supra note 3, pp.26-34.

16. Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai in 2005. Supra note 4.

17. Personal communication with Maureen Greenwood-Basken, Advocacy Director for Europe and Central Asia, Amnesty International USA, October 2006.

18. The case reported by the Novorossiysk Human Rights Committee; March 2007.

19. Parliamentary Assembly's Opinion No. 209 (1999) "Georgia's application for membership of the Council of Europe." Text adopted by the Assembly on 27 January 1999 (4th Sitting). Available at: http://assembly.coe.int/main.asp?Link=/documents/adoptedtext/ta99/eopi209.htm (accessed on 23 April 2007).

20. For more details see: Ethnic-Confessional Groups and Challenges to Civic Integration in Georgia. Tbilisi: Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development, 2002, pp. 49-51.

21. Law of Georgia "on Repatriation of Persons Forcefully Sent into Exile from Georgian SSR by the Former USSR in the 40's of the 20th Century" No.5261-RS from 11 July 2007. Official publication (in Georgian): Sakanondeblo Macne (The Parliament's Bulletin) No.29, 27 July 2007.

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