Amnesty International announced in a statement on January 17, 2024 that the authorities of European countries should immediately stop the transfer of refugees and asylum seekers belonging to the North Caucasus to Russia.
Authorities in Croatia, France, Germany, Poland and Romania, among others, have or have attempted to extradite or deport asylum seekers who had fled persecution in the North Caucasus to seek asylum in European states, thereby denying them the right to international protection.
Due to their religious and ethnic identity – the majority of people from the region are Muslim and are Chechen, Dagestani, and Ingush, among other ethnicities – entire communities have been branded as ‘dangerous extremists’ that pose an existential threat to national security, allegedly justifying their return to a region where their rights are at real risk.
According to Nils Muižnieks, director of Amnesty International’s Europe Regional Office: “European countries must recognize that many individuals of such background would face arrest or abduction, torture, other ill treatment or forced conscription on their return.”
Many people from the North Caucasus who have fled to the European countries, are now at risk of extradition or deportation from European countries, which would constitute a violation of the principle of non-refoulement.
States’ threatening to return people to Russia is taking place against a prevailing backdrop of discrimination and stigmatization in Europe of people from the North Caucasus, who are for the most part Muslim. This risk has increased since Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.