"Armenian Panorama" reports about systematic discrimination of Armenians at Mineralnye Vody Airport

The journalists of the newspaper "Armenian Panorama", which is published in the Stavropol Territory, have addressed their open letter to Alexander Khloponin, Russian President's Plenipotentiary for the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), stating that passengers of Armenian air flights, including citizens of Russia, are regularly insulted at the Mineralnye Vody Airport.

"Passengers-Armenian nationals are constantly facing all sorts of problems and systematic discrimination. They are humiliated and abused at passing the passport control and the customs, as well as when documenting their luggage and documents," the open letter says. The authors give eyewitnesses' evidences.

"Many hours of waiting for the paperwork, derogatory remarks of individual employees, no reaction to passengers' claims and just comments have become a norm. Passengers with small children, elderly persons and women are kept in summer for 4-5 hours in stuffy rooms. Inspection of luggage and documents grows from a formal procedure into a severe test of one's psyche endurance. People have impression that they cross the border not of the Russian Federation but of one's private estate," the letter to Mr Khloponin says.

"The last drop of patience was over after the last incident on October 21, when five persons (including two small children), who had tickets and all the necessary documents on hand, were not admitted to the flight. We are not asking for any special preferential treatment of passengers from Armenia; we just demand the usual legal treatment only," the authors of the letter write.

They emphasize that "this kind of discrimination and harassment is applied only to passengers of Armenian flights, while those from other international flights are not experiencing any problems or discrimination at the Mineralnye Vody Airport," the "lragir.am" writes.

On behalf of the editorial board, the open letter was signed by Mikhail Manvelov, editor-in-chief of the "Armenian Panorama". Similar letters were also sent to the bosses of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Russian Ministry of Transports, the Governor and senior officials of the Stavropol Territory, and the directorate of the Mineralnye Vody Airport, the information centre of the newspaper of Russian Armenians "Erkramas" reports.