Directive makes people homeless

A protest action with the slogan USSR Passports Cancelled, People Forgotten! was conducted in the Krasnodar territory on 24 December.

"USSR passports will expire on 31 December and several thousand people resident in the Krasnodar territory whom the local government has not recognised to be Russian nationals for far-fetched reasons will become homeless or maybe even stateless.

Even now when death certificates are issued for people with such passports, the residence column is filled in as "homeless." Meanwhile, just fifteen years ago they legally purchased homesteads and lived here before their death.

This is what Mr Khasan Gurji-Ogly, a Kurmanji (Northern Kurd) leader, was saying painfully.

"On 1 January, people may become lifetime dwellers of deportation camps where living conditions are much worse than in prisons," he said.

Around thirty representatives of the Novorossiysk Committee for Human Rights and various ethnic groups such as Yazidis, Khemshils, Batumi Kurds (Kurmanji), Russians, Armenians, and Crimean Tatars have decided to draw the attention of the world and Russian public to this problem.

Near Bzhedukhovskaia, Belorechensk district, action participants formed a column and processed with slogans No Life Without USSR Passport!, Equal Rights to Everyone!, and Stop Kuban Racism!.

The police did not interfere with the developments, but watched the protesters give interviews to journalists.

Because the territorial government does not want to hold talks on the problem of ethnic discrimination or cancel regulations that contradict Article 27 "The Right to Freedom of Movement and Choice of Residence" of the Russian Constitution, the people decided to hold a picket in front of the office of the Russian president's envoy to the South federal district, Mr Dmitry Kozak, in Rostov-on-Don, according to a release of the Novorossiysk Committee for Human Rights which Caucasian Knot has received.