BISHKEK (TCA) — A Kyrgyz lawyer whose work has supported the efforts of the Kyrgyz Republic in becoming the first country in the world to end statelessness has been selected as the 2019 winner of the UN Refugee Agency’s Nansen Refugee Award, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) announced on October 2.
Azizbek Ashurov, through his organization Ferghana Valley Lawyers Without Borders (FVLWB), has helped well over 10,000 people to gain Kyrgyz nationality after they became stateless following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Among them, some 2,000 children will now have the right to an education and a future with the freedom to travel, marry and work, the UNHCR said in a press release.
“Azizbek Ashurov’s story is one of great personal resolve and tenacity,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
“His commitment to the cause of eradicating statelessness in Kyrgyzstan – an achievement secured in partnership with the Kyrgyz government and others across the country – is a compelling example of the power of an individual to inspire and mobilise collective action.”
As part of the Soviet Union, with no internal borders in place, people moved across Central Asia with internal documentation, acquiring residency and getting married. After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and the formation of new states, many people became stranded across newly established borders, often with now invalid Soviet passports or no means to prove where they were born. This left hundreds of thousands of people stateless throughout the region, including in Kyrgyzstan, according to the UNHCR.
Motivated by his own family’s difficult experience of achieving citizenship after arriving from Uzbekistan in the aftermath of the dissolution, Ashurov helped to found FVLWB in 2003 to offer free legal advice and assistance to vulnerable displaced, stateless and undocumented people in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan.
“I cannot stand still when I see an injustice,” said Ashurov. “Statelessness is injustice. A stateless person is not recognized by any state. They are like ghosts. They exist physically, but they don’t exist on paper.”
The 2019 Nansen Refugee Award ceremony will take place on October 7 in Geneva.
The award includes a commemorative medal and a US$150,000 monetary prize donated by the governments of Switzerland and Norway.
