Asylum, Oleg Liskin, Yabloko, Russia, Germany, persecution, jail, human rights

Geschrieben von: Daniel Naujoks

Germany granted political asylum to the Russian opposition leader Oleg Liskin

BERLIN - For the first time German authorities granted asylum to a Russian national. While chancellor Schröder demonstrates unity with the Russian Head of State Putin German asylum authorities recognised the precarious situation in Russia. Human rights activists welcomed the decision.

Because of his commitment to the opposition movement Jabloko the 36 years old Oleg Liskin from Moscow is threatened by political persecution. The Berlin daily newspaper “Tagesspiegel” reported on 8 June 2005 that the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees justified the decision because there was the risk that one would allege that Liskin has committed a crime and that he would come to jail therefore. 

According to an immigration and refugee office report, Liskin was held in custody and allegedly tortured in 2001 after standing as a candidate in regional elections to become governor of Tula in central Russia. He came to Berlin in December 2002 because he risked being sent to prison for being a danger to state security, the report said.
Liskin also worked for the Russian bank Legprombank, which supported the Russian reformist party Yabloko.

On the contrary, chancellor Schröder recently has called Vladimir Putin a “flawless democrate”.  This is the first time that a Russian national was granted political asylum in Germany, commented Peter Franck from Amnesty International. “That is a sign”, he said. Even the leading German asylum NGO Pro Asyl did non register such a case yet.

According to the chairperson of the human rights committee of the German goverbment, Christa Nickels, the decision of the Federal Office is “absolute adequate”. In Russia is developing a “anti-democratic conflagration”. Opposition leaders get isolated and their human rights often are disregarded. The recently condemned founder of Yukos, Michail Chodorkowski, has been punished because he has supported the opposition.

Gernot Erler, the Vice-Chairman of the ruling Social Democrat party in the German Parliament who is at the same time in charge of the government coordination for the German-Russian Cooperation called the decision “very unusual”.
He does not think that in Russia someone is threatened by jail only because he or she is engaged in an opposition movement. Jabloko is an officially accredited political party, he pointed out, whose members can move freely in Russia.
The Russian Embassy in Berlin told that such a decision of a German authority was “totally inexplicable”.

The spokesman on external affairs of the conservative CDU/CSU group in the German parliament , Friedbert Pflüger, said that the granting of asylum in the case of Liskin should give an impulse to check whether the Schröder’s “policy of embracement” vis-à-vis Putin is adequate. There is no doubt that good relations with Russia and with its democratically elected president are in the interest of all Germans. But there have to be more clear words among partners, said Pflüger.

by Daniel Naujoks