Lawyers doubt Mirzalizade's prospects of staying in Russia

Idrak Mirzalizade, a comedian, has the right to appeal against the decision on his life-long expulsion from Russia, but the prospects for such litigation are doubtful, the experts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" have noted.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on August 30, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) banned Idrak Mirzalizade, a Talysh native and a citizen of Belarus, from entering Russia for life. He has served 10 days of administrative arrest for a joke about xenophobia, and was recognized to be an undesirable person in Russia, the MIA has stated.

The incident with the comedian Mirzalizade is one of tens of thousands, Kirill Koroteev, a lawyer, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Kirill gave an example of the practice of expelling activists from Russia for participating in Navalny's actions. "I don't know anyone expelled for a joke before, but for demonstrating support for Navalny, many were expelled from the country. More than a dozen [such cases] have been appealed at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)," Mr Koroteev has added.

Svetlana Gannushkina, the head of the "Civil Assistance" Committee*, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that there were cases of appealing against decisions to expel people, and they returned to Russia. She noted, however, that figurants in such cases had their families remaining in Russia.

She treats the very procedure for making decisions about undesirable persons as non-transparent, since often the grounds for such decisions are very controversial statements that are contrary to common sense.

Decisions on recognizing persons as undesirable are appealed against at courts, said Kirill Zharinov, a partner of the law firm "Musaev & Partners". "It is possible to appeal against them, but in practice such appeals are satisfied not too often," he has added.

*The organization has been included by the Russia Ministry of Justice into the register of non-commercial organizations (NCOs)-foreign agents.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 2, 2021 at 06:18 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.