Theme: Forced migrants and Russian citizenship, legal aspects and problems

Situation with the granting of citizenship to Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai

Meskhetian Turks is a repressed nation that had been expelled from Akhaltsiksky region of Georgia to Central Asia, and up to now it hasn’t been given a possibility to return to its ancestral home. Fergana events of 1989 forced about 90 thousand Turks to leave Uzbekistan. They had been evacuated in accordance to a plan (somebody had left by himself, though) and then spread all over Russia. In particular, about 15–16 thousand of the Meskhetian Turks settled in 1989–1990 in Krasnodar Krai. As of today, we have about 12 thousand of them left in Krasnodar Krai (according to my information), with 11 thousand living on the territory of four districts: Krymsky, Belorechensky, Apsheronsky and Abinsky.

A specific trait about the settlement of Meskhetian Turks is that they live in clans. About 10 families (100–200 people) live in one village. Thus, in Krymsky district they live in a few localities; totally there are about 6000 people. The government of the district says that if they had settled more or less evenly over the entire territory of Krasnodar Krai, there wouldn’t have been any problem. However in this situation a considerable pressure is placed on the community. That is why the Turks don’t get registered.

The problem of Turks in Krasnodar Krai is that the local government doesn’t want to recognize them as Russian citizens, but for the fact that they are covered by the Art. 13 of the law on citizenship. They came to the territory of Russia back in 1989–1990, none of them refused the citizenship. Consequently, according to the logic of the law they must be considered citizens.

Experts of “Memorial” went to Krasnodar Krai, studied the problem of the Meskhetian Turks and raised it to a serious level. Before that public organizations of the Meskhetians, “Vatan,” “Umit” and others, wrote collective petitions to different organs, which as a rule had no positive effect. But the program of “Memorial” is oriented at a specific task, namely at creation of test cases on recognition of citizenship, registration and payment of pensions, of test cases at the level of the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, and then the problem of the whole group of population could be resolved through references to the cases. The recent resolution of the Constitutional Court on Paragraphs 10, 12 and 21 of registration rules, along with the definition of the Constitutional Court on a constitutionality check of Art. 14, 15, 35 of the regional Law on Registration give grounds to believe that however complex the problem would be, a solution to it will be found.

A few notes on the problem of citizenship acquisition. Local authorities express ultimate outrage refusing to recognize the Meskhetians as citizens even when the acquisition of citizenship is verified by the stamp of the consular department of a Russian consulate. For instance, citizen Halilov who obtained citizenship through a consular department of the Russian consulate in Uzbekistan and who has an inherited house in Krymsky district applied for registration at the place of residence. The head of the passport and visa service told him that he wouldn’t register him though he had to, because his job is of more value to him than the law.

The judges of Krasnodar Krai understand that the refusals of registration of housing acquisition deals and refusals of registration at the place of residence made by the region and district administration are illegal, and nevertheless they make unlawful decisions or delay the cases in all possible ways, unwilling to confront the regional government.

For example, a lawsuit of the Aliev family was considered in Abinsky district on September 25, while the consideration of cassation on this case was appointed for as late as December 1.

I work in permanent contact with “Vatan,” a public organization of Meskhetian Turks. Lately the leadership of this organization has began to work on the settlement of this problem very actively. On November 22, 1998 the elections to the legislative assembly of the Krai were held, and in this connection there were a few attempts to interpose an appeal against the decisions of the territorial election committees on refusals of inclusion on the voters lists of adult Turks who reside on the territory of the districts. Simultaneously the question of citizenship recognition was raised. However the legislation on elections embodies a collision of standards. Besides, in the law on elections and participation in referendums there exists Art. 233 of the RF Civil Code making provisions that the complaint against refusal of a person’s inclusion to the list of electors must be first considered by the executive committee of the People’s Deputies Council and only after that in court. Although there is no such organ nowadays, Art. 233 hasn’t been formally repealed. The judges of Krymsky and Abinsky districts used this collision in legislation and avoided consideration of the complaint ad rem, having sent them to the administrations of the districts. The administrations wouldn’t react. We appealed against the decisions to the regional court; let’s see how it will do away with this problem.

I want to inspire some of the district judges to lodge an inquiry to the Constitutional Court on the constitutionality of Art. 233 of the RF Civil Code.

There also used to be yet another problem. When children of Turks were turning 16, they were not given any ID. From August 1998 they began to issue temporary IDs to the children, where it was indicated that they were not RF citizens and are registered at the place of sojourn for the term of 45 days. In 45 days the owner of such an ID had to pay 225% of the minimal wage per person. Draconic fines of 50 minimal wages imposed administratively were introduced. We worked out templates for complaints (yet another problem of Turks is that they came from Uzbekistan, they graduated from school where teaching was in Uzbek, so they don’t speak Russian well; it’s easier for them to pay a bribe to a police officer than to get to the point where they would be able to exercise their rights.

In order to get protection from administrative outrage it was decided to make applications at the place of residence massively. About 200 applications were filed , mainly in Abinsky and Krymsky districts. The regional Department of Internal Affairs addressed a proposal to the Governor to pass a resolution on the temporary registration of Meskhetian Turks on the territory of Krasnodar Krai for the term of one year and on the reduction of the fee to the size of 100 roubles. Resolution #511 “On the temporary registration of Meskhetian Turks on the territory of Krasnodar Krai” was passed on September 10, 1998, a provision was worked out and special stamps were provided… But the heads of Abinsky and Krymsky district administrations who lost a source of income, exaction from Turks, met with Governor Kondratenko, and on September 7 he signed Resolution #555 repealing Resolution #511.

I have not been working on problems of Meskhetian Turks that long, only from May 1998, but I can confirm the conclusions of “Memorial” experts that regional and local authorities in Krasnodar Krai allow ethnic discrimination in respect of Meskhetian Turks, which is a direct violation of the European Convention on human rights protection. Since 1996 (when the analysis was carried out by “Memorial” experts) the situation of this group as well as of the other forced migrants in Krasnodar Krai hasn’t changed for the better, the only exception being the cessation of apparently criminal actions against this group of population which were committed by certain groups of Cossacks under cover of slogans calling to fight for the interests of the aborigines of Kuban.

Qualified legal aid is badly needed to settle problems of migrants in Krasnodar Krai. Resources of international organizations interested in building an open and just state in Russia should be used for that purpose.