Is Germany abandoning 28,000 Belarusians?

With a new decree, Belarusian dictator Lukashenko wants to bring his opponents from abroad back to Belarus. Many of them face long prison sentences there. Germany can theoretically help tens of thousands of Belarusians living in the country. But there is a big catch.

When her grandmother died in Belarus this summer, Alina K. did not travel to the funeral. The Belarusian, who has lived in Germany for almost twenty years, was afraid of being arrested when entering her home country. This fear is shared by hundreds of thousands of her compatriots who live abroad and do not agree with the regime of dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Arbitrary arrests, persecution on flimsy grounds, torture and death behind bars - this is everyday life in the ex-Soviet republic, which Lukashenko has ruled with an iron hand for 29 years. For a long time, many Belarusians who left their country were able to feel safe abroad. Since September 4 at the latest, this has come to an end.

On that day, news from his homeland alarmed the Belarusian diaspora all over the world. Lukashenko announced a decree banning diplomatic missions abroad from issuing passports and other documents. Anyone who needs a new passport - or documents for marriage, real estate transactions and much more - can no longer apply for this at an embassy, but must travel to Belarus.

This is Lukashenko's way of luring his opponents from abroad in order to take revenge on them. For many Belarusians who left the country after the suppression of the peaceful protests in 2020, but also for those who have been living abroad for some time and have shown solidarity with the democracy movement, the route home is often also a direct route to prison.

Without a passport, the German residence permit is invalid

Even before the new decree came into force, there were increasing reports of arrests of people who had come to Belarus to clear up bureaucratic matters, visit friends or say goodbye to deceased relatives. The human rights organization "Vyazna", founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bjalyatsky, is aware of at least 58 such cases in 2022, but the number of unreported cases is likely to be much higher. The extent of the intimidation is so great that relatives of those arrested are rarely willing to speak publicly about it or inform human rights activists for fear of further persecution, explains "Vyazna" activist Diana Pinchuk on the NGO's website.

Most Belarusians living in the EU have residence permits. However, these are linked to the passport. If the Belarusian document expires, the residence permit is invalid. In Germany alone, at least 28,000 people will be affected sooner or later - according to official figures, this is the number of Belarusians living in Germany.

"Illegal" after 20 years in Germany?

One of them is Alina K. (name changed). Her Belarusian passport expires in just over two months. Her family came to Germany in 2004 as so-called Jewish quota refugees, today the 30-year-old lives in Berlin and works in the media sector. Put off by the high bureaucratic hurdles and long waiting times, Alina K. has not yet been naturalized. A fatal hesitation, as it now turns out. After twenty years, she is on the verge of becoming "illegal" in Germany.

Traveling to Belarus is out of the question for K. On August 9, 2020, when hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Belarus to protest the rigged presidential election, she conducted exit-poll interviews at the embassy in Berlin as a volunteer for the "Golos" (Voice) platform. With the help of this application, the democracy activists were later able to gather irrefutable evidence of the election fraud.

In the months that followed, K. took part in a number of solidarity demonstrations and protests. "We were filmed by Tichari at one of the demonstrations," she says in an interview with ntv.de. Tikhari are members of the Belarusian security forces in plain clothes who record participants in demonstrations on video so that they can be identified and tracked later. In the fall and winter of 2020, there were repeated reports on social media that the Belarus demonstrations in Germany were being filmed by suspicious-looking men.

"In Belarus, you can be arrested for anything - likes, posts, photos of demonstrations," says K. "I can imagine that nothing will happen to me in Belarus and that I'll come back safe and sound. But there is a chance that I will end up behind bars - and I don't want to put my whole life at risk," explains the Berliner, referring to the inhumane conditions and torture in Belarusian prisons.

Naturalization only theoretically possible

K. does meet the requirements to be naturalized in Germany, but there is "total chaos" in the Berlin authorities, she explains. Since the capital will have a central naturalization office at the beginning of January, the districts that are currently still responsible have not been accepting naturalization applications for months.

And there is no improvement in sight: the new naturalization center, where more than a third of the positions are still vacant, is starting with almost 40,000 backlogged applications. If Berlin maintains the current processing rate - fewer than 9,000 people were naturalized in 2022 - K. would have to wait more than four years after applying for her German passport.

Vicious circle of bureaucracy

One option for Alina K. and other Belarusians whose passports are about to expire could be the travel document for foreigners. However, this can only be obtained if you can prove that you can only obtain a passport in Belarus by unreasonable means. "In view of initial reports of arrests of Belarusian citizens who have returned due to the decree, the unreasonableness of obtaining a passport should generally be assumed for Belarusians who are demonstrably politically persecuted," said a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior when asked by ntv.de.

Anyone who wants a replacement document in Germany must therefore provide evidence of their own persecution. "But how can you prove that you are being politically persecuted if you have been living in Germany for 20 years?" asks K. "I couldn't have been persecuted in Belarus because I hadn't been there since 2020."

An inquiry to the Ministry of the Interior brings little clarity. The responsible immigration authorities would check on a case-by-case basis "whether obtaining a passport is reasonable under the circumstances of the particular case according to the legally prescribed standards".

Foreigners authority is "impossible to reach"

K. and other Belarusians have no choice but to apply for a travel document for foreigners and hope that the examination of unreasonableness will be positive. However, this leaves K. facing another problem: the State Office for Immigration (LEA) in Berlin is "impossible to reach", says the 30-year-old. There is not a single available appointment on the authority's website. And "when you call there, nobody answers," explains K.

At the end of September, she sent a request via the authority's contact form - and has now been waiting for a response for almost three months. The 30-year-old doesn't know what to do next. She still has a few weeks to go - then her papers expire.