– I have been an officer, and there is a shortage of such in Russia. I am sure that I will be assigned to the front, because all ex-soldiers are now being recruited, says the 53-year-old Tajik man who previously lived in Russia “Rusty” To .
“Rustam” says that he has acquaintances and friends in Russia, all of whom have been drafted into the army. We will not use his real name in the story for security reasons.
– They have been sent especially to Wagner’s forces, says Rustam.
Wagner is a notorious mercenary army whose troops are estimated to make up a significant part of Russia’s military power in Ukraine.
Rustam has lived in Finland with his daughter for three and a half years. The daughter is now 14 years old, goes to school and has learned the Finnish language. Rustam has applied for asylum twice. They have received a negative decision.
Therefore, the husband and daughter now face forced return to Russia. According to Finnish law, forced return can be implemented after a second negative decision, even if the appeal process is still ongoing.
The Supreme Administrative Court has not made a decision
Rustam received a negative decision on his second asylum application in February of last year. He had applied for asylum based on his conversion to Christianity.
The administrative court also issued a rejecting decision at the end of 2022, and the appeal process to the Supreme Administrative Court was started soon after.
Because of this, Rustam and his assistants filed an application for leave to appeal and applied for an injunction to enforce the decision.
They are aimed at interrupting the return. However, the Supreme Administrative Court has not made a decision.
– The Supreme Administrative Court now has information that the man would end up in the war. I don’t understand how you can’t get a positive decision out of it, says the parish priest from Pori who helped the man and daughter Kaisa Huhtala.
A ban on enforcement would mean that forced return would be suspended and the case would be investigated based on new information.
Executive Director of Refugee Counselling Pia Lindfors cannot comment on the case of an individual asylum seeker, but he says that the threshold for granting an enforcement ban is too high in Finland.
– It has happened that a person has been converted to another country and the decision to stop the conversion has come after that, he says.
A ban on enforcement would mean that the restitution will not be enforced until the court has resolved the matter. A new asylum application cannot be initiated while the previous process is in progress.
First persecuted Tajikistan, then Russia took the passport
Born in the Soviet Republic of Tajikistan, Rustam was caught up in the five-year civil war in the 1990s.
Rustam, who worked as an officer, says in an interview with that he participated in the opposition’s activities. This and being part of a national minority made him a target of persecution in Tajikistan.
Rustam fled to Russia at the beginning of the 2000s and lived and worked there for 16 years.
However, according to Rustam, the authorities in Tajikistan also started to persecute those who fled to Russia.
– People were kidnapped and returned to Tajikistan.
The Russian authorities also became more blunt. Rustam had received an internal Russian passport, which was invalidated.
In 2019, she decided to escape to Finland with her daughter. The daughter’s mother had already returned to Tajikistan in Central Asia.
Rustam, who came to the country with hope, is disappointed with the Finnish authorities.
– I presented official certificates that showed that my Russian citizenship has been revoked, says Rustam.
According to Rustam, he no longer has the citizenship of any country.
– Still, they want to convert us to Russia now, he says
According to Rustam, this means an assignment to Ukraine, in which case the daughter would stay in Russia on her own luck.
– My daughter has received good grades and is used to living here, says Rustam.
– When Ukrainians came to the refugee center last spring, he helped them by acting as an interpreter.
“Russia’s war of aggression should be taken into account”
Pia Lindfors from Refugee Counseling says that the changed circumstances and especially the start of the Russian war of aggression should be seriously taken into account when processing the asylum applications of Russians.
– Repatriation in a situation where a person has an order to enter service can practically mean getting into a war, where you may have to commit war crimes, says Lindfors.
Refusing to go to war, on the other hand, means, according to him, a clear risk of being persecuted.
There have also been serious shortcomings in the consideration of children’s rights when deciding on asylums and residence permits in Finland in recent years.
In February 2021, Finland received its first decision from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. It stated that Finland had ignored the assessment of the child’s best interest in the asylum seeker’s conversion decision.
According to Refugee Counseling Pia Lindfors, the problems continue.
– We are aware of cases where removal decisions have been made for Russian families with children without an individual and appropriate assessment of the child’s best interests, he says.
Vicar Kaisa Huhtala, who followed Rustam’s case, is disappointed with the Finnish authorities.
– The actions of the authorities contradict the fact that Finland opposes Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, he says.
Stopping the translation is the last hope
has no information on whether the case of Rustam and his daughter is currently under consideration by the Supreme Administrative Court. It does not comment on individual cases.
Based on the KHO’s answer, at least the processing backlog cannot be considered the reason why there has not been an enforcement ban.
– The ban can be imposed at different stages of the processing of the case, and the applications are not resolved separately, for example, by decisions made in the order according to the starting date, spokesperson Jaana Lappalainen the email response says.
If enforcement is not prohibited, according to the answer, as a general rule, a written decision is not made, but the consideration can be made again.
The Supreme Court did not directly answer whether the applicant to stop the conversion will be told about the negative decision.
A negative decision means that the deportation will be carried out.
Helsingin Sanomat was the first to report on the matter.