Russian family fails in bid for asylum in NZ
Authorities have refused asylum to an academic and her children, who fear they will be killed if they return to Russia.
The family, whose names have been suppressed, were unsuccessful in their appeals against an earlier decision declining 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.
She was responsible for overseeing the work of other volunteer observers at different polling stations, including her son.
On election day, her son told her one of the election officials had placed a large bundle of voting papers into a polling box.
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.
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.
In October 2019, she arrived in New Zealand on a visitor visa, her children had student visas.
The following year, the three applied for recognition as refugees but were declined by the Refugee Status Unit, leading to their appeals.
The tribunal accepted the appellants’ accounts as credible and their “genuine trepidation” about returning to Russia.
But it 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.