Germany rejects almost all asylum applications from Georgians of Chechen origin – including Zurab Changoschwili’s. His brother was murdered by a Russian in Berlin’s Tiergarten in 2019.
Zurab Changoshvili and his family are nervous. The police could show up at any time and take them to the airport. They have been threatened with deportation to Georgia since the Potsdam Administrative Court finally rejected their asylum applications a few days ago.
In its decision, the court only explains why the asylum decision that was made in another country should stand. The assassination attempt on Zurab’s brother Selimchan is not taken into account. The murder in the Kleiner Tiergarten in Berlin on August 23, 2019 made international headlines. A Russian was convicted as the perpetrator in 2021, who, according to the Berlin Court of Appeal, had acted on behalf of and with the support of the Russian state.
The Potsdam Administrative Court had also rejected Selimchan’s asylum application a year and a half before his death. He presented “a wildly alleged, unverifiable scenario solely for the purpose of converting the illegal stay into a right to remain through the asylum procedure.” The court rejected a medical certificate. However, the autopsy of the deceased confirmed the reported serious heart problems. The finding of scars on his left arm was also consistent with Changoshvili’s statements about an assassination attempt in Georgia in which he suffered serious gunshot wounds in 2015.
Because the Georgian authorities did not investigate the crime and he feared further assassination attempts, Selimchan went to Germany. He also urged his brother Zurab to leave Georgia with his family. Like Selimkhan, Zurab fought in the Second Chechen War.
Open doors for Russia
While Selimchan’s sister and wife and their families have been granted refugee status, brother Zurab fears for himself and his family if they now have to return to Georgia. The “Georgian Dream” is still in power. “As long as this party is in power, I don’t see any security for us there,” says Surab. The party now acts even more in the interests of the Russian government than when he fled in 2018. Georgia has also become a hub for Russian secret services.
Since Russia’s major attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, tens of thousands of Russian citizens have come to Georgia. You can stay in Georgia for a year without a visa. Chechen businessmen who are considered to be in the power circle of Putin’s deputy, Ramzan Kadyrov, were spotted. The Georgian opposition accuses the “Georgian Dream” of repeatedly bending to Putin’s will.
However, the Potsdam Administrative Court sees no danger in Georgia for the Chechen minority of the Cists, several thousand of whom live primarily in the Pankisi Valley. “Unfortunately, Germany doesn’t take our situation seriously,” says Zurab, also expressing the bitterness of other Chechens.
According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), the overall protection rate for citizens of Georgia of Chechen origin fell from 4.4 percent in 2017 to 0.4 percent in the first eight months of 2023. For all asylum applicants from Georgia, it fell from 2.1 also 0.4 percent.
Overall protection rate
The overall protection rate shows how high the proportion of successful asylum applications to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) is. A distinction is made according to the cases in which asylum was recognized, refugee status was granted, subsidiary protection was granted or a deportation ban was imposed. The protection rate includes both substantive decisions, in which the Bamf deals with the specific situation of the respective applicants, as well as purely formal decisions. The latter includes when an asylum application is withdrawn or another EU country is responsible. The adjusted protection rate, which only takes into account the substantive BAMF decisions, is higher – but not significantly so in countries with a low proportion. Legal action can be taken against BAMF decisions. Later judgments, such as granting asylum, cannot be determined from the protection rate. The federal government recently again described the introduction of statistics on protection rates taking into account court decisions as “not expedient”. (dpa)
“Pro-Russian sentiment” just a narrative?
When assessing asylum applications, the German authorities and courts rely, among other things, on situation reports from the Foreign Office. In the current report from May 26, 2023, the tagesschau.de could see, the boxes are only mentioned as one of several minorities in the country.
“Russian and Belarusian capital inflows” and the approximately 130,000 Russian nationals in Georgia are mentioned. The report is cautious in its assessment of the ruling party’s relationship with Russia. Opposition parties are quoted as accusing her of having “pro-Russian and anti-Western sentiments”.
For example, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the State Duma in Moscow praised the Georgian authorities for not succumbing to “anti-Russian hysteria” and not joining the sanctions against Russia, and for even intensifying their ties.
According to a recent survey, 77 percent of the Georgian population still sees Russia as the greatest danger. The survey is carried out regularly on behalf of the “International Republican Institute”, an organization close to US Republicans. According to this, 29 percent would definitely not vote for the government party, but also 40 percent would not vote for the largest opposition party, the United National Movement, led by former President Mikhail Saakashvili.
Both parties are characterized by the fact that their style of government became more and more authoritarian the longer they were in office. In addition, given the power of the ultra-conservative Orthodox Church, the suffering for LGBT people is great.
Safe country of origin
Lawyers and human rights activists fear that the chances of obtaining asylum will further decrease if Georgia is recognized as a safe country of origin. After the Federal Cabinet and the Bundestag, only the Bundesrat has to agree. Although every asylum application should continue to be processed thoroughly, the aim of this classification is precisely to speed up the process. A so-called rule presumption then applies, according to which there is no risk of persecution. Rejected asylum seekers must then file lawsuits against decisions from Georgia.
It is questionable whether much will change in the cases of Georgian citizens. In the statistics, the South Caucasus Republic is already in the area of safe countries of origin: Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina. For example, the average processing time for asylum procedures fell to 2.9 months in 2022. This emerges from a response from the federal government to a small question from the left-wing faction in the Bundestag in March.
The situation is similar when it comes to the processing time until a decision is made that cannot be appealed in court, i.e. until all legal means have been exhausted. For the first half of 2022, the federal government gives an average of 13.1 months for citizens from Georgia. For the safe countries of origin in southeastern Europe, this period varies between 19.4 months (Kosovo) and 5.0 months (Bosnia-Herzegovina). For all states, the average was 21.8 months.
Most deportations to Georgia
Georgia is exemplary when it comes to taking back nationals. Of the 7,861 deportees in the first half of 2023, most (705) had Georgian citizenship, according to another response from the federal government to a small question from the Left parliamentary group in August. During this period, 14 deportation flights took place in the South Caucasus Republic.
The Foreign Office’s management report states that the cooperation with the Georgian authorities is working “effectively and smoothly”. Georgian police officers are predominantly used for returns. The collaboration is going “remarkably well”.
Since 2016, Georgia has accredited a police attaché at its embassy in Berlin. The Ministry of the Interior in Tbilisi said that the task is not only cooperation with returns, but also other police activities such as fighting crime and traffic safety tagesschau.de-Inquiry with. According to meticulous statistics on the ministry website, Georgia took back 2,202 citizens from Germany by the end of October, far more than from any other country, whose total number was 3,387.
The fact that the Georgian government is so willing to cooperate can be explained by the incentive of visa liberalization. Since 2017, Georgian citizens have been able to stay in the Schengen area for nine months per year without a visa. It is an achievement that the people of Georgia greatly appreciate. A suspension could spark new anger at the government.
The case of Georgia shows that the tightening of asylum policy, even in cooperation with its government, has not led to a permanent reduction in the number of applicants, on the contrary. Applicants who fear for their safety, like Chechen-born Zurab Changoshvili, and their lawyers now expect their cases to be rejected even more quickly.