Dr.Victoria Poupko, the President of American Association of Jews from Former Soviet Union appealed to Czeh authorities about the terrible situation of Chechen asylum seekers in Czech Republic.

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To    :  Minister of Interior Mr. Martin Pecina

Copy:  President of Czech Republic Mr. Vaclav Klaus

Premier-Minister of Czech Republic Mr. Jan Fischer

Members of Parliament of Czech Republic

July, 30, 2009

Dear Sir,

Please, accept the full respect and trust to you from the Association’s members.

We address you a big, longstanding and a very painful question.

But first, let us quote the words of Mr.Rudolf Bindig from his report (September 2004) about ‘Grave Human Rights violations in Chechen Republic: “…protection mechanism [is] to be established by the European Convention on Human Rights, [and] to urge the member states of Council of Europe: to continue applying Geneva Convention relating the status of the refugees in granting political asylum to applicants from the Chechen Republic, recalling that Human Rights activists, lawyers and relatives of suspected fighters for independence are among those most vulnerable to disappearance, tortures and other most serious abuses”.

Now, our question: is Czech Republic a member state of Council of Europe? Do the persons or/and Institutions on duty in Czech Republic read this report (and many further ones), which was spread widely?  Did they approve and cooperate with the Report?

If yes, (we hope), then what happened with the Executive Power on towards Chechen refugees’ cases, and personally with Mr. Tomash Haishman who directly monitors and controls the refugees issues, -what has happened with them judging on the fact that the situation and conditions of Chechen refugees in Czech Republic are worse than in any other country in Europe?

Here are four examples of rather critical situation of families of Chechen refugees (probably they are not the worst): S.T., R.O., U.G., S.M.*. What does Mr.Haishman mean when he postpones more and more with the solution of S.T.’s case? This time the decision on S.T. case is postponed until 24/3/2010.

It seems that the authorities of Czech Republic forgot the heroic struggle of their own people to get freedom from the Soviets, from their KGB regime. They forgot the beautiful, but bloody “Prague Spring”, in 1968,  40 years ago. They forgot 7 Russian and Jewish courageous people that made unbelievable demonstration in the Red Square in Moscow, in support of Czechoslovakia. In Brezhnev era, they paid a high price for their courage and devotion to Human Rights: colonies (labor camps), psychiatric prisons, exile. It seems to us that your current attitude towards Chechen refugees is nothing but play in favor of the Russian KGB-FSB. It is really scared.

We urge you to solve positively these four cases at least, in accordance with International laws and regulations and in accordance with your understanding of principles of moral and Human Rights.

Sincerely, yours,

Dr. Victoria Poupko

President of American Association of Jews from Former Soviet Union

*For security reasons we didn’t publish the names of Chechen asylum seekers.