MOSNEWS, Russia
July 26 2004
Moscow Evicts Armenian Refugees From Dorm – Paper
Created: 26.07.2004 13:37 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 13:37 MSK, 2 hours
15 minutes ago
MosNews
200 Armenian refugees living in a Moscow dormitory were told by city
authorities to leave in five days, Izvestia newspaper wrote Monday.
Moscow officials came to the dorm in the north of Moscow and ordered
the refugees to sign the papers on their eviction. Several
inhabitants agreed to sign them.
Three weeks before, police and emergency officials had evicted
Armenian inhabitants of one of the dormitory’s buildings, the paper
wrote. The eviction took place in the early morning. The law
enforcement officials threw bottles in the windows and broke the
doors. The belongings and furniture were thrown from the windows. The
building was immediately demolished. The evicted did not receive any
other place to live.
The refugees’ lawyer Igor Rakhmilov quoted by the paper called this
eviction illegal and said they had sent letters to the Moscow
prosecutor’s office, to the city administration and to the Russian
president Vladimir Putin.
In June 1990, then head of Moscow Council executive committee, now
Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov signed a decision on the temporary
accommodation of refugees. Armenians who had fled from Azerbaijan
were allowed to live with their families in Moscow dorms and register
there temporarily, the paper reminded. The 200 refugees living in the
dorm quoted by the paper say they were not registered.
The U.S. Congress had recently invited all Armenian refugees to the
United States for permanent residence. However, Moscow spokesmen of
the UN High Commissioner on human rights quoted by the paper said
that this program had been closed.