You're reading: Nation can be dangerous for those who flee persecution

Ukraine is no safe haven for persecuted from abroad.

When businessman and politician Kadyrzhan Batyrov escaped Kyrgyzstan for Ukraine in 2010, he thought he would be safe from the threat of imprisonment that he faced back home.

Instead, Ukraine came close to extraditing him back to Kyrgyzstan, and he was only saved when Sweden stepped in to offer asylum.

Many people from Central Asia take advantage of the visa-free regime with Ukraine to flee here to escape political or ethnic persecution, but often end up being sent back despite criticism by human rights defenders.

Batyrov, an influential politician and businessmen from southern Kyrgyzstan who led the Uzbek community in the country, managed to escape that fate.
Other refugees aren’t so fortunate.

“Very few representatives of Central Asian states, including Uzbeks, have ever received the status of a refugee in Ukraine,” said Maksym Butkevych, a spokesman for the Kyiv office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

According to a UNHCR report, Ukraine deported 11 refugees to Uzbekistan in 2006 who were accused of involvement in the uprising in the city of Andijan that was violently crushed by the authorities. They were arrested immediately on their return and have since been imprisoned.

International human rights watchdogs such as Amnesty International strongly criticized Ukraine, accusing the authorities of violating the UN convention on refugee status. A number of Uzbek asylum-seekers are currently in detention in Ukraine awaiting extradition.

Butkevych said most cases of extradition from Ukraine don’t even become publicly known.

Batyrov, 55, a former parliamentary deputy received a life sentence in absentia for his alleged role in ethnic conflicts in southern Kyrgyzstan in summer 2010. He was accused of inciting violence between ethnic Uzbeks, who make up 30 percent of the population in that part of the country, and Kyrgyz, which ended in hundreds of deaths on both sides.

He denies any wrongdoing and claims the prosecution against him was a politically motivated attempt to win favor among Kyrgyz ahead of recent presidential elections.

“They twisted it all like I was guilty,” he said in an interview.

Batyrov has long pressed for wider rights for the Uzbek community, such as a special status for its language.

He said the ethnic violence between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz was sparked not by the hatred but by the politicians who wanted to use it for their benefits.
“Kyrgyz are peaceable people. This conflict was needed by those who stole in [former President Kurmanbek] Bakiyev’s times or those who feared for their own seats” in government, he said.

Asyl Osmonalieva, a Kyrgyz journalist, said she believes Batyrov wanted to strengthen both the Uzbek community and his own political status, but instead became a scapegoat.

“Hundreds of people died, thousands were wounded, somebody had to be held responsible for sedition,” she said. “Batyrov appeared to be a convenient lightning rod.”

After he was blamed for inciting the violence, he left Kyrgyzstan and travelled for a year between Uzbekistan, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates, where his family has lived for the last nine years, to avoid prosecution.

He spent most of his time in Ukraine, mainly in Kharkiv, Sumy region and sometimes in Kyiv. In the middle of September 2011, he applied for asylum, only to be told in October that Kyrgyzstan had requested his extradition.

The request for extradition had been under consideration for a year, leaving Batyrov in limbo. He discussed his case with several Ukrainian lawmakers on parliament’s human rights committee and with ombudswoman Nina Karpachova. “Nobody told me anything bad, but I heard nothing concrete at the same time,” he said.

Butkevych said Ukraine’s authorities were facing a tough choice – to damage relations with Kyrgyzstan or violate international law – and so decided to play for time, spending one year considering the request.

“They decided: We will not give him refugee status but will also not give him to the persecutors, and will better wait until somebody else accepts this man,” Butkevych said.

Finally, in October this year, Ukrainian prosecutors granted the request to extradite him, despite reports by human rights groups that Uzbeks detained over the ethnic conflicts had been treated brutally by Kyrgyz law enforcement bodies.

Prosecutors eventually withdrew permission to extradite Batyrov after UNHCR helped him to receive an offer of asylum in Sweden.

“Sweden granted me refugee status in 84 hours,” he said.

Batyrov said he keeps in touch with the Uzbek community in Kyrgyzstan and hopes to be able to return home. As for Ukraine, where he wanted to launch a business, he still has hopes to receive refugee status here and return. This way he could indirectly provide help for the Uzbek community in Kyrgyzstan and it would be a good precedent, UNCHR officers believe.

“I feel more comfortable here [in Ukraine] than in Sweden or any other Western European state” as “it’s one of the ex-Soviet Russian-speaking republics,” Batyrov said. “But I don’t want to stay in this suspense.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]