On 18 April 2014, the Territorial Commission for the Recognition of International Protection of Rome issued Alma Shalabayeva, wife of dissident Kazakh Mukhtar Ablyazov, and their daughter Alua, renewable five-year permits granting them refugee status. They were illegally deported from Italy to Kazakhstan in May 2013 following a demand from Astana in a continued bid to harass outspoken dissident and critic Mukhtar Ablyazov.
FIDH Italian member organisation, the Unione forense per la tutela dei diritti umani (UFTDU), represented them at the hearing which amply confirmed the merits of the application and a well-founded fear of persecution in Kazakhstan. This decision sends a strong signal of Italy’s refusal to comply with requests from regimes that systematically violate human rights.
FIDH and its French member organisation, the Ligue des droits de l’Homme (LDH), had previously written to the French authorities regarding Mr Ablyazov’s extradition, after his arrest in France on 31 July 2013, detailing similar risks of persecution.
Read the press release from the UFTDU (in Italian) here
Italy - Kazakhstan: Italy grants refugee status to Alma and Alua Shalabayeva
