Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office has shifted from total denial of any part in handing journalist Yusuf Inan over to Turkey on July 12, to claims that this was an extradition in full accordance with Ukrainian law.  There are strong grounds for believing that the latter is also not true, and that Inan was given no chance to appeal against his enforced return to a country where he faces imprisonment on questionable charges

Although it was Belarus that extradited Russian opposition activist Vladimir Yegorov to Russia, this was only because Ukraine’s Security Service had first flouted both Ukrainian and international law by simply dumping Yegorov, who had applied for asylum in Ukraine, on the border, leaving him no choice but to cross into Belarus.

Ukraine’s Migration Service has refused to explain to Detector Media why it rejected Kazakhstani journalist and opposition activist Zhanara Akhmet’s request for asylum.  Simply claiming that the information is ‘confidential’ and contains personal data will not do given the serious grounds for believing that Akhmet will face persecution if forcibly returned to Kazakhstan. 

Yet another asylum-seeker facing torture and persecution if forcibly returned to the Russian Federation has had his application for refugee status rejected by Ukraine’s Migration Service.

Due to numerous systematic violations of human rights, Ukraine cannot be considered a “safe country of origin” and “safe third country”.

Ukraine’s Migration Service has turned down Ildar Valiev’s application for asylum, even though he could face imprisonment in Russia on charges identical to those which Russia is using to illegally imprison Ukrainian Muslims in Crimea.

“If I am killed or kidnapped or extradited to Azerbaijan in the near future, all responsibility lies with the Ukrainian authorities”.   Azerbaijani journalist Fikret Huseynli had serious grounds for making this sombre warning, and for asking bitterly how he has deserved such appalling treatment from Ukraine.  He is not the only journalist whose freedom, or life, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General is endangering for reasons so unclear that it is hard to exclude the possibility of direct collusion with the Azerbaijan authorities.

An attempt was made in Kyiv on March 5 to detain Fikret Huseynli, a journalist working in exile for an opposition channel, and facing a baffling ‘extradition check’ in Ukraine.  Huseynli received political asylum and later citizenship in Holland and there is no way that Ukraine can legally extradite him to Azerbaijan.  The events on 5 March, however, compound concern that an attempt could be made to abduct him, and hand him over to the Azerbaijani authorities..

Yulia Tolopa, a Russian who fought for Ukraine in one of the first volunteer battalions back in 2014 and whose small daughter is a Ukrainian citizen, is being forced out of Ukraine despite the strongest of grounds for fearing her persecution in Russia.  The situation is insultingly absurd since she can only obtain the document confirming her lack of a criminal record demanded by Ukraine’s Migration Service if she crosses into Russia, where she faces immediate arrest because of her support for Ukraine..

It was because of Zhanara Akhmet’s criticism of the Kazakhstani regime that she faced prosecution in her own country and sought asylum in Ukraine, together with her small child. That alone should have precluded her initial detention, but did not, and now a second court has rejected the application from an MP and prominent human rights activist to release the journalist on their guarantee and remanded her in custody for 60 days.

Kazakhstani blogger and activist Zhanara Akhmet has become the latest of at least three journalists and activists from post-Soviet countries to be detained by the Ukrainian authorities in the last six weeks. She has made disturbing allegations about what looked much more like an attempted abduction, than supposed compliance with yet another Interpol Red Notice.  

Fikret Huseynli, a journalist working from Dutch exile for the opposition TV Turan channel, was detained on October 14 at Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport. Since one of the charges against him is of ‘illegally crossing the border’ when he left Azerbaijan in 2008, the question yet again arises of what checking procedure Interpol uses before issuing Red Notices

PEN International has added its voice to concerns expressed in Ukraine and by the Committee to Protect Journalists over the detention and possible extradition of Uzbek journalist and poet Narzullo Akhunjonov, whose very life would be in danger if forcibly returned to Uzbekistan and who is seeking political asylum in Ukraine

There are compelling grounds for assuming that 51-year-old Narzullo Akhunjonov would be in danger if forcibly returned to Uzbekistan and that the charges against him are linked to his journalist activities

There are very many unanswered questions as to how Russian opposition activist Vladimir Yegorov came to be taken by Ukrainian officials to the border and told he had been refused asylum in Ukraine.  The questions need answers since Yegorov has now been remanded in custody back in Russia, almost certainly for his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin and opposition activities.

A Russian who was forced by the FSB to fight against the Ukrainian Army in Donbas and who surrendered voluntarily to Ukraine is now in danger of being extradited to Russia. The supposed criminal charges against Vladimir Radyuk have almost certainly been concocted to secure the forced return of a person who can provide vital testimony about Russia’s military aggression in eastern Ukraine

Denis Bakholdin, a Moscow activist and opponent of Russia’s war against Ukraine has been found in a Russian SIZO, or remand prison, three months after he disappeared in Kyiv. Little is known about how he came to be there, with this and the apparent use of torture chillingly reminiscent of stories of how Ukrainians have come to be in Russian detention .

The UN Human Rights Committee has ordered the Ukrainian authorities to halt extradition of Timur Tumgoev to Russia, pending consideration of his assertion that he would face torture if forcibly returned

Ildar Valiev, a Kazan Tatar has been placed in detention in Odesa because Russia wants to imprison him on identical charges to those it is using against 19 Crimean Muslims, four of whom have already been declared political prisoners.

A Ukrainian court has ordered the detention, pending extradition, of Shakhban Isakov, an asylum-seeker whom Russia wants to prosecute on the same dubious charges as those Russia has brought against two renowned Crimean Tatar leaders, both Ukrainian MPs