O. Dupuis: Risk of expulsion from France towards the Russian Federation of a Chechen personality

Brussels, 5 August 2003. (my translation)

According to information from the "Comete for Chechnya", Ruslan Maigov, with his wife and their four children, advanced a request for asylum in France. Ruslan Maigov is the brother of Salambek Maigov, the representative of Aslan Maskhadov in Moscow. Ruslan Maigov had been arrested and beaten in Russia and Chechnya. During his last arrest, in December 2001, in order to obtain his liberation a ransom of 160,000 rubles has been paid. Ruslan Maigov is particularly menaced because of having been the possessor of cassettes where President Maskhadov transmitted materials to his brother. The OFPRA (the French Office for Refugees), and later the recourse commission, opposed nevertheless a refusal to the demand [for asylum] in France advanced by Rouslan Maigov and for his family, justifying it with the fact that if Salambek Maigov lives in Moscow without being target, apparently, of menaces, his brother Ruslan and his family could live in Russia. This argument of the competent French authorities visibly doesn't take into account nor the arrests and harassments the Russian authorities inflicted previously to Ruslan Maigov, neither the "interest" the Russian authorities visibly manifested on Ruslan Maigov, and also not the fact that unfortunately it is a current use in Russia, in order to intimidate Chechen personalities, to subject their families to menaces, measures of intimidation and violence.

Finally, Rouslan Maigov, his wife and his four children will be expelled in the next days from the accomodation center for asylum seekers (CADA) of Marseille, and will be forced to leave the territory.

Interrogation of Olivier Dupuis, European deputy, radical, to the Council:

"Is the Council aware of the situation of Rouslan Maigov and of his family? Does the Council believe that the decision taken by the competent French authorities is respectful of the common norms in terms of asylum rights, as they are defined in the Schengen accords? More generally, because of the grave menaces the Chechens are subjected in the Russian Federation, does the Council not believe that it should adopt urgency measures in order to block any decision of bringing Chechen residents to the frontiers in the countries that are part of the Schengen accords?"

The Peace Plan for the institution of a controlled international administration for Chechnya can be sustained on www.radicalparty.org

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Comment: Really, Europe is doing its best to make things worse! Salambek Maigov seems to do a good job in trying to find a peaceful resolution of the conflict (tough his arrest, he said, is "only a question of time"). Will he feel to continue on this track knowing that he is putting on risk also the life of his brother and his family?

France, EU, Europe! SHAME ON YOU!!!!

M.M.