Open letter from chechen refugees in Germany

Letter from the Refugees from Chechnya to the Civil Rights Organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch: Realize the Genocide! Realize our Right of Santctuary!

22.Mar.02 - We are refugees from Chechnya who could have managed to arrive in Europe. We are not many ! We are lucky ! Now we neither need to suffer under 'mopping-ups' nor are shot down groundlessly on the streets by drunken mercenaries; we neither need to sleep in ragged tents, nor go hungry and we aren't search for either by Russian officers of militia who thirsty of revenge judge the Chechens in Russia by themselves. We are fled from the horror called 'democratical' Russian federation for the Chechens.

We all reached Europe on different ways. Some despairing passed the borders illegally, other paid the treble for the tourist visa with borrowed money. In fact every refugee sold or left all he had built up during his life to go to Europe. On the other hand there are those who abused the situation in Chechnya and the right of sanctary telling everybody to be a Chechen, but we don't want to write about them here.

Europe didn't welcome us sincerely. But we didn't expect that either. We would have been happy if we had the chance to dmonstrade being an equal citizen, an equal European. Nearly everybody of us has got the highest educational qualification and lot vocational experience. Besides everybody of us showed the nearest social environment, either the neighbours or acquaintaces, not to have less human values than everybody else. We are robbers, no terrorist, but human beings who would like to earn by doing a fair work and to live our life to the best our beliefs.

We went our way not because of economical problems. In Chechnya there is a very ruthless war Russia doesn't intend to finish, like everybody knows. Living in Russia is too dangerous for a Chechen. That's fact we try to prove here. Seeing all the strange thing for us is that you, dear respected Civil Right Organizations, whose authority is unimpeachable and whose word is always true and and the law, you own the evidence. Nevertheless we have to prove our escape!

Yes, there are Chechens living in Russia. But how do they live' They couldn't let them file at the registration office, and their unemployment and their other problems aren't the point at all. It were you who proved that all, as well as some reports of the Chechens who had to come to an understanding with it directly. It wouldn't be difficult to survive unless every second every citizen of Chechen orgin must feel frightend to be arrested without any foundation with paradoxical effort to be beaten and to be totured. And those are the measures the swarming official security service uses to guarantee the so called public safety. And everybody of ushas as it were a sign on the forhead saying 'murderer', 'terrorist', 'human of inferior quality'.

Getting through the proceedings for refugee it is required by letter to state that induviduum is persecuted honestly by the government or an organization authorized by the government. That's the tragedy of the situation a Chechen in Russia never knows when exactly he is beaten to death, when he is affronted, when his children are forced to leave school, when his home is damaged. And whitch office in Russia should attest this for the victims' Even when this unpossibility happened that someone gets this testation, such a letter wouldn't taken in earnest at all. Then this would be said: 'a falsification, in Russia everything can be bought anyway'

Not everybody here is able to persuade the officer that it is very dangerous for the Chechens in Russia. But it takes long weeks, months and even years that everybody gets the same answer to his cry for help. This answer is the same all over Europe. Everybody expects it sooner or later. Lately the Chechens haven't only waited for the negative result of the proceeding for refugee but they have had to accept being arrested for month, before beeing sent back by plane like criminals with handcuffs to the 'love home', the Russian Federation, where they then are already welcomed by the filtration institution. You know about the sad lot of people going there.

Through this letter we want to to pay attention first. After that we ask you to help refugees from Chechnya in Europe to tell the truth about the Chechens in Chechnya and the Chechens in Russia. It is nearly impossible for us to prove what have been done with us. We neither have the experience not have connection and information you have got or will or could get. We are prepared to help you to help others, to let help us ourselves. Meet our wishes and defend us, each of us and altogether, like an induviduum.