Politically persecuted people from Belarus have enjoyed special residence rights in Germany since last year. That should also apply to human rights activists from Russia, demands Green politician Amtsberg.
The human rights commissioner of the federal government, Luise Amtsberg (Greens), calls for visa easing for Russian human rights activists in order to make it easier for them to go into exile in Germany.
“Within Russia, repression against those who think differently, especially as a reaction to the war, is becoming increasingly severe,” she told the “Welt am Sonntag”. “We have a duty to help these courageous people, because they too are defending freedom, democracy and human rights in Europe.”
She would like “that we develop a separate profile grid for humanitarian visas, analogous to what already exists for Belarusian human rights defenders”. After the protests in Belarus last year, the federal government decided to grant a residence permit on humanitarian grounds to individuals who were persecuted for political reasons.
According to the newspaper, since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, several Russian opposition figures and intellectuals have fled to Germany or have wanted to go there. The co-founder of the human rights organization “Memorial”, Irina Scherbakova, told the newspaper that instead of remaining silent, she would rather continue fighting for human rights abroad. She is therefore in Israel and wants to travel on to Germany. The head of Moscow’s Sakharov Center for Human Rights, Sergey Lukashevsky, and writer and doctor Maxim Osipov told the newspaper that they were already in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, respectively.
Source: Stern
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