RUSSIAN SCIENTIST
Deportation looms
Getting taken back to Russia is like being handed over the to the KGB. I feel they are being treated like criminals.
A Russian scientist seeking refugee status in Canada has been ordered to report to the Canada Border Services Agency in two weeks to set a date to be deported.
Elena Musikhina, a university professor and researcher, says she fled Russia because she feared for her life after she collected information about environmental hazards caused by pollution and military activity around Lake Baikal in Siberia.
A half-dozen other insiders who knew about this data died in mysterious and violent circumstances, she claims.
Musikhina said she was also a vocal opponent of the Putin government while she was in Russia, and has participated in protests in front of the Russian embassy in Ottawa. She and her husband Mikhail fled Russia in 2015.
“Getting taken back to Russia is like being handed over the to the KGB,” said Musikhina’s daughter, Olesia Sunatori. “I feel they are being treated like criminals.”
Musikhina’s supporters include David Kilgour, a former MP and human rights activist, and federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. They have called on federal ministers to intervene in the case and renewed their efforts after they learned that a deportation date is to be set on Nov. 6.
If Musikhina doesn’t appear for a hearing on that date, she can be arrested.
Kilgour said he was worried about the family’s safety, even while they were living in Canada. Musikhina and Mikhail have lived in Gatineau with Sunatori since they arrived in December 2015.
Opponents of the Russian government have faced danger, even outside Russia.
In March, former spy and double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found poisoned by a nerve agent on a park bench in Salisbury, England.
“If they go back to Russian now, something terrible will happen. They won’t survive,” Kilgour said. “With some cases, you just know someone wants to get out of the country. I have no doubt Elena and Mikhail are genuine refugees.”
Stopping a deportation at this point is difficult, said May, who has appealed to Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale and Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Ahmed Hussen for ministerial intervention.
“I have stopped deportations before and I have also failed. Once the CBSA decides that someone is going to be deported, the wheels are in motion,” May said. “I am just so worried for her and her family. If she is sent back, it is certain they will be killed.”
Musikhina says she was brought before the vice-rector of her university in September 2015 and warned that criminal charges would be brought against her for her political activities. She and Mikhail left Russia on Oct. 10, 2015, and stayed briefly in Poland, where their son, Aleksei, was a student. They applied for travel visas to visit Sunatori and claimed refugee status on Jan. 20, 2016.
In their testimony before a tribunal of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, the couple said Russian authorities planned to accuse them under Section 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
But the tribunal found that, while their documents provided context to Musikhina’s work-related problems at the university, the couple had not demonstrated that they were in serious danger of persecution under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The fact they left Russia unhindered “diminishes their credibility on regards to whether the authorities were seeking them.”
Their application for refugee protection was turned down in June 2016. An appeal of that decision also failed. In July, the Federal Court declined Musikhina’s request for a leave for judicial review of the rejected claim.
On Wednesday, Musikhina said she was shocked when she learned that she could be required to leave the country within weeks. She and her husband have applied to stay in Canada on humanitarian grounds, but the status of that application is still up in the air.
Aurel Braun, an expert in international relations and Russian affairs at the University of Toronto, has supported the couple’s application for refugee status.
“There is a lot of evidence that shows people who oppose the Russian government are in serious danger,” he said in an interview on Wednesday. “Sending these people back to face real danger ought to offend the conscience of Canadians.”
Braun said Canada should be commended for the compassion it has shown Syrian refugees. But he’s perplexed about why that same consideration isn’t being extended in this case.
“They could be put on a plane to face an uncertain fate — and one that makes me shudder to contemplate,” he said. “This is incredibly distressing.”
The Russian Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.
The Canada Border Services Agency indicated it would respond, but could not do so in time for deadline.