A Minsk court has overturned the decision to deport Iranian citizen Merhdat Jamshidiyan who has spent 10 months in Belarusian prison. His case has been sent back for review.
The Belarusian Department of Citizenship and Migration (OGIM) was about to extradite the man to Iran where he is highly likely to get a death sentence. The Ministry of Interior refused to give the man refugee status.
Merhdat Jamshidiyan has been living in Belarus for more than 20 years and, with the exception of the last two years, he had had registration. But for the last seven years Iran has been asking to give out the man, because the state suspects of murdering his mother and brother (for the record, he was an opposition activist) in September, 2012. It should be noted that Merhdat was staying in Belarus at that moment.
Until recently, the Belarusian side refused to start extradition proceedings due to lack of conclusive evidence. Even if a man is found not guilty in his homeland, he may still be executed; in Belarus, he converted to Christianity, which is considered as apostasy.
For the year to date, almost 1,000 Belarusians have signed an appeal to the authorities asking ‘not to send Merhdat to his doom’.
belsat.eu, phot. Vadzim Zamirouski, tut.by
