For the first time in Russia, Rule 39 of the European Court for Human Rights Regulations was applied with regard to the citizen of Somalia. The lawyer, Olga Tseitlina, stated the corresponding demands in the European Court on behalf of her applicant, a citizen of Somalia, A.B.G., to whom ADC “Memorial” has been providing legal help within the framework of its project “Legal help for illegally detained migrants” (with the support from the OAK Foundation). As a preliminary measure, taking into account the lawyer’s arguments, the Court ordered not to deport the complainant before February 29, 2012.
The applicant – a citizen of Somalia – had to leave the State of his citizenship, for fear of persecution on the basis of his ethnicity (in Somalia, his father was killed as a result of such prosecutions, and his sister was attacked). Once in St. Petersburg, the complainant applied for asylum, but instead was prosecuted by the Court for violating migration rules. As a result, the complainant was in danger of being deported to Somalia, which could have been done at any time, but is now banned by the European Court.
The situation in Somalia has recently been examined by the Court in the case on the complaint against Great Britain (Sufi and Elmi v. the United Kingdom), but in practice, the European Court has evaluated the danger of deportation to Somalia for the first time in Russia.