A letter from the teachers of a refugee school to UNO representatives.

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To the representative of the UN High Commissioner Agency for Chechen refugees in Ingushetia from the teachers and members of their families of the refugee school in the tent camp "Iman" of the village Aki-Yurt  in Malgobek district of Ingushetia. A copy to the regional coordinator of Moscow Helsinki group Imran  Ezhiev

Appeal

We, the teachers of the refugee school and our relatives, appeal to you with a request to let us go to any democratic country, which observes elementary human rights. Our request is a cry for help! A cry of desperate morally exhausted people who try not to lose their personal dignity. At present we are subject to psychological pressure on the  side of representatives of Migration Service of Ingushetia, members of Kadyrov's administration and the federal centre. They aimed at the liquidation of the tent camp. And they succeeded. To achieve it many migrants have been excluded from the registration lists of Migration Service. And it is understandable: if there are no migrant camps, there are no refugees, no refugees - no war. They use Stalin's principle - if there is no man, then the problems do not exist, which was tested  during the period of massive repressions, in particular, on Chechen people and people of other nationalities in 1944.

No matter what the papers say, the fact is that the war is going on and consequently our safety on the territory of the Chechen republic is not guaranteed, and as we think, it will not be guaranteed in the nearest future. However, on the territory of Ingushetia our rights have been constantly violated. It manifests itself in threats on the side of members of Migration Service in order to make us leave the present places of our temporary habitation, and also in disconnection of the houses from gas pipelines and electric lines when the temperature outside is sometimes 25╨ below zero.

We are not interested in politics, we want a quite peaceful life for us and our children. But the government is not able to do it.

We are tired to claim the observation of elementary human rights and norms of international law in our demands and appeals. In particular, a number of articles of the Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the  UNO in 1948 and acknowledged by the Russian government are being roughly violated (Articles 3, 5, 6, 9, 17).

According to Paragraph 1, Article 14, every man has a right to seek for asylum in other countries and to use it, and we plead to give us an opportunity to exercise this right.

December 13, 2002

Signed by:

Akhmatkhanova M.M.
Bashaev M.K.
Gairabekova L.R.
Davletmirzaev I.P.

http://www.chechenpress.info/english/news/01_2003/17/6.htm