Austria trivialises risks of Chechen refugees: rights groups

Human rights groups on Wednesday denounced Austria’s increasing refusal to grant asylum to Chechens, citing the regime’s continued ill treatment of its people.

Vienna was granting asylum to fewer and fewer Chechens, the group SOS Mitmensch told a press conference, noting that positive rulings were made in only 20 percent of cases in 2011, compared to 60 percent in 2006.

“In Austria, the reasons for fleeing are trivialised and the people themselves are portrayed as not credible,” noted Nadja Lorenz, the head of SOS Mitmensch and a lawyer who represents Chechen asylum seekers.

“Austria and other European countries too are not taking their responsibilities seriously.”

Refugees who were sent back risked death, while disappearances and torture were common, noted Heinz Patzelt, head of Amnesty International Austria.

“In Chechnya, a cemetery-like calm rules,” he said, citing “systematic threats against those who return and their relatives.”

But Austrian authorities assumed the situation in Chechnya had stabilised and that asylum seekers were abusing the system, the rights groups said.

The situation of Chechen asylum seekers in Austria has had greater media coverage compared to other communities after the 2009 murder — believed to have been ordered by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov — of a dissident in Vienna.

Umar Israilov, a 27-year-old former member of Kadyrov’s security forces, had sought asylum in Austria and was due to testify in a torture case against Kadyrov, before he was killed, trying to flee after an attempted kidnapping.

This week, a Vienna appeals court confirmed a life sentence for the alleged mastermind behind the incident.