On May 15, the International Day of Conscientious Objectors to Military Service, activists from the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in Austria held a picket demanding asylum for Chechens fleeing mobilization in their homeland.
“People are trying to leave the republic because they are being forced, under the threat of fabricating cases, to participate in a criminal war. In Germany and Austria there are many who emigrated from the war. We made a demand to provide them with international protection and not to deport them back to Russia,” Roza Dunaeva explained the purpose of the action. According to her, 20 people from the Chechen diaspora, the local Links party and refugees from Ukraine came out to picket in front of the Austrian Federal Chancellery and the OSCE building in Vienna.
Since the beginning of the so-called special operation in Ukraine, cases of deportation and refusal to provide asylum to Chechens with Russian citizenship fleeing mobilization have become more frequent in many European countries. The Romanian migration service especially distinguished itself. According to human rights activists, Chechens in Romania face deportation or arrest, even if they are not officially wanted by the special services, but are crossing Romania in transit. “People don’t want to be murderers, and Europe doesn’t accept them,” Roza Dunaeva commented on the situation.
International Conscientious Objector Day is celebrated on May 15 due to the fact that on May 15, 1997, the Federal Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany passed a resolution on the rehabilitation of those who were persecuted for refusal of military service and desertion in Nazi Germany. During the Second World War, Hitler's justice imposed more than 30 thousand death sentences on refuseniks and deserters.