A Russian family has been declined refugee and protected persons status in New Zealand. Photo / Stock Image 123rf
A Russian family has been declined refugee and protected persons status in New Zealand. Photo / Stock Image 123rf
A New Zealand authority has refused asylum to an academic and her children who fear they will be killed if they return to Russia where the woman made public allegations of election fraud.
The Russian nationals, whose names and identifying particulars have been suppressed, were unsuccessful in their appeals against an earlier decision declining to grant them refugee or protected person status.
The recently released decision of the Immigration and Protection Tribunal, set out why the woman, who has a doctorate in law and was an associate professor at a university in Russia, her son, 27, and daughter, 13, were seeking asylum.
The woman, 53, was a volunteer election observer in a 2016 primary election of a Russian party, which was not named in the decision, held to appoint two candidates to represent the party in a state parliamentary election.
She was responsible for overseeing the work of other volunteer observers at different polling stations, including her son who was an observer at one of the stations.
On the evening of the election, the woman's son told her one of the election officials had placed a large bundle of voting papers into a polling box.
Only single, completed voting papers should have been placed into the box at any one time.
In the decision, the son claimed about 400 people had arrived to vote that day but more than 1200 ballot papers were counted.
The woman said she had also received reports from other volunteer observers who had noticed "irregularities" in the conduct of officials at their polling stations.
She went on to report the alleged fraud to a journalist and to the election supervising committee.
Later, she repeated the allegations while speaking at a press conference and at an academic conference hosted by a government ministry. She also wrote about it in an article published in an academic journal.
Soon after, the woman was asked by the head of the university to resign from her position.
The Immigration and Protection Tribunal declined the family's recent appeals. Photo / Stock Image 123rf
The rector said he did not want to see the university, or himself, connected in any way to her outspokenness about the fraud, she claimed in the decision.
She reluctantly resigned and went on to work at a high school while continuing to write academic articles.
However, none of the articles were accepted for publication and her attempts to attend academic conferences were blocked.
After being "blacklisted" as an academic, and with the country's political situation having "worsened with the silencing of dissenting voices and opinions", she became concerned for her family's future in Russia and decided to leave.
In October 2019, she arrived in New Zealand on a visitor visa with her son and daughter who held student visas.
The following year, the three applied for recognition as refugees but were declined by the Refugee Status Unit, leading to their appeals with the tribunal.
In their appeals, the woman claimed to be at risk of being killed or seriously harmed in Russia by police or state security services as a result of her reporting the alleged incident of electoral fraud, and her involvement in supporting the opposition to the Russian government.
Her son had the same fears, brought on by him assisting his mother's reporting of the incident, his own political views and his participation in an anti-government rally.
The decision said the mother had posted her political views on Russian social media platforms, and she and her son had attended political protests.
The tribunal accepted the appellants' accounts as credible and their "genuine trepidation" about returning to Russia.
It was satisfied that, if arrested, the mother and son would likely face serious harm if they were detained for any length of time.
But the central issue for the tribunal was whether there was a real chance they would be arrested or detained if they returned.
The tribunal found the chance of them being the victim of serious harm, arising from breaches of internationally recognised human rights, was no more than remote and speculative.
It ruled the appellants were not refugees within the meaning of the Refugee Convention, nor protected persons within the meaning of the Convention Against Torture or International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and their appeals were dismissed.
