Russian authorities grant temporary asylum to Turkmen blogger Choliev

Turkmen blogger Rozgeldy Choliev will not be sent home. The Russian Migration Service accepted his application and informed the man that he had been granted temporary asylum for three months. However, Rozgeldy Choliev, who planned to join his family in Cherkessk, still stays in the neutral zone of the Sheremetyevo airport, human rights activists report.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on March 2, Rozgeldy Choliev was detained at the Moscow airport while he was trying to return to Cherkessk to join his partner and child. The man complained about the rude behaviour of border guards and their insistent demands to return to Turkey, from which he arrived. If deported to Turkey, Rozgeldy Choliev could be extradited to Turkmenistan, where he would be persecuted, human rights activists claim.

On March 9, the attitude of the Turkmenistan's authorities towards relatives of Rozgeldy Choliev also changed. The authorities stopped threatening them, turned to soft persuasion, and expressed a wish that the former student returned to Turkmenistan, the Turkmen Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights reports on its website.

Rozgeldy Choliev's case is the first since the beginning of the pandemic when Russia agreed to accept an application from the refugee at the airport.

* the HRC "Memorial" is recognized in the Russian Federation as a foreign agent.