Migrants victims of post-Beslan crackdown in Moscow - NGO

Central Asian migrant workers in Russia are increasingly falling victim to a post-Beslan crackdown on illegal migration. The Russian police have deported hundreds of Tajik labour migrants for failing to register in time, a move criticised by migration NGOs in the country. "This is nonsense. It is nothing but window-dressing," Lidiya Grafova, head of the Forum of Migrants' Organisations, an international NGO tackling the problems of migrants, told IRIN from Moscow on Tuesday. "Similar demonstrative deportations for the television cameras have been done in the past, and mainly the most vulnerable and unprotected Tajiks were taken." Grafova alleged that the operation targeting illegal migrants in the capital was conducted by law-enforcement agencies simply as a way of demonstrating that they were reacting to an increase in terrorist acts in the country, including the recent attack on the Beslan school, and to clear the city of illegal migrants, while potential terrorists walked freely. Gavkhar Juraeva, head of the Migration and Law information centre, told IRIN that deportations of illegal labour migrants, including Tajiks, were not uncommon in Russia, including Moscow. "This happens every day and is a routine action. The recent terrorist attack in Beslan has led to tightened control of foreign nationals staying in the country," she said. Their comments came a day after the Russian police announced the results of their Migrant 2004 operation conducted on 15-16 September in Moscow. According to the city's police, more than 33,000 people were checked by some 12,000 police officers. Some 4,380 foreign nationals were detained for violating the migration regulations. Moreover, some 155 people were sent to special temporary detention facilities and 840 have been deported, mainly Tajik and Azeri illegal migrants. "In terms of deportation, Tajiks are not in the last place," Juraeva said, adding that some Tajiks awaited deportation for up to two months pending funding from the Russian budget. Foreigners in Russia need to register within three days after arrival, which is virtually impossible due to bureaucratic hurdles. "The registration mechanism is so complicated that only a few people manage it. Therefore there is a deadlock in which people want to register but are not able to do so, while law-enforcement officers have to arrest them so that everything is as the law stipulates," Juraeva explained. "The new laws have put in place such a complex, as if deliberately complicated, registration procedure, that registration has become virtually impossible," Grafova agreed. According to Russian Interior Ministry estimates, there are about five million illegal migrants in Russia, of which three million are labour migrants. "Of this figure half [1.5 million] are probably Tajiks," Grafova estimated. However, the International Organisation for Migration [IOM] estimates that the number of Tajik labour migrants in Russia is about 600,000, while other unofficial sources suggest the figure could be up to one million. As a solution to the situation, Juraeva said that the law regulating the status of labour migrants needed to be changed. "If the law cannot be changed then the registration mechanism should be worked out in such a way that it allows the legalisation of hundreds of thousands of these poor people," she emphasised.