The French newspaper “Le Monde” published an article titled “Go Back to the Cell!” which is about Chechen asylum seekers who came to France and then were deported to Poland, where they had entered the European Union first.

Catherine Simon, the correspondent from “Le Monde”, tells the story of a Chechen pair, 25-year old Ruslan and Karina. They arrived in France a few years ago through Poland. In 2008, they joined the invisible army of “zombies”. After a while they went to the prefecture of Tours, a city in France, in order to register. A few days later, when they returned to get their documents, they saw that police in plainclothes were waiting for them. The couple spent the night in a police station and the following day, early in the morning the handcuffed Ruslan and Karina were bused to the international airport Charles de Gaulle. Tours city police told the young couple that it happened because of Dublin. The young couple did not understand what this meant, but they learned once they were deported to Poland.

Dublin II is a regulation which organizes the asylum procedure in the territory of the European Union (EU). According to the regulation, an asylum application must be considered by the member of the EU where the third-country nationals first crossed the border and entered the EU.

In 2008, the French NGO, “La Cimade” which helps migrants and asylum seekers, published a report entitled “People of Dublin-II” which describes the misadventures of asylum seekers, particularly those coming through Greece and Poland. Today, in Poland, there are several thousand so-called “Dubliners”.

According to research about asylum seekers in Poland, conducted by Kristina Iglitska from Warsaw International Relations Center and Magdelana Ziolek-Skszipcak from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, 3,113 people were granted political asylum between 1992 and 2009. This is only 3.5% of all applications submitted.

“Le Monde” correspondent Catherina Simon wrote that Warsaw, as well as other European capitals Paris, Vienna and Bonn do not want to antagonize the regime of Vladimir Putin. In the past, in France, asylum seekers were welcomed, especially the ones from Chechnya, but in 2007 the French government abruptly changed its view.

*Text was translated by Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco