Do not criminalise Chechnyan refugees on German-Polish border!

With the urgent appeal not to criminalise the approximately 200 Chechnyan refugees who were stopped in a train at the German-Polish border on Tuesday the Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker GfbV) has written to the Polish government in Warsaw. "The refugees have acted in desperation. They wanted to demonstrate peacefully in front of the European parliament in Strassbourg against their bad living conditions in Poland. For this they cannot be punished – as the Polish authorities claim”, says the letter of the human rights organisation. Now it is a matter of really helping these people, since they were in a desperate situation. Among the refugees in the train are 60 children. For them and all the others a good solution must be found quickly.

On Monday evening the refugees boarded the train from Breslau to Dresden in Liegnitz (Legnica). Polish police stopped the train. About 200 of the 230 refugees come from Chechnya and 30 are reported to come from Georgia.

The Chechnyan refugees have escaped from a hell, reported the STP. Ramzan Kadyrov, who was made president by Moscow, rules his republic with an iron hand and is personally responsible for murder and torture. The refugees now need in Poland protection from the Russian and Chechnyan secret services and support for a decent life. Chechnya is ruled today with violence and terror from the government.

The STP draws attention to the fact that the Chechnyan people have three times been victims of genocide. About one quarter of the Chechnyan population died in the course of the collective deportation to Central Asia by Stalin. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Russian troops under the then President Boris Yeltsin marched into the North Caucasus. By 1996 some 80,000 people, for the most part civilians, were the victims of the Russian war machine. Another campaign of destruction against Chechnya was conducted by Vladimir Putin from 1999 to 2002, in which another 80,000 Chechnyans lost their lives.

The STP consultant for the states of the Russian Federation, Sarah Reinke, can be reached at s.reinke@gfbv.de