Just a coincidence

President Dmitry Medvedev said the fact that the expulsion of migrants from Tajikistan began immediately after a court in that country handed down a harsh ruling against Russian pilot Vladimir Sadovnichy should be considered “just a coincidence.”

The deportation of migrants should be carried out constantly, and not periodically, the president announced. “Citizens who break the law should be expelled from the country or their legal status should be brought into proper condition, I don’t see any campaign,” ITAR-TASS quotes Medvedev as saying.

At the same time, Gazeta.Ru recalls that after Medvedev demanded to take “asymmetrical measures” in response to Sadovnichy’s sentence, the head of the Federal Migration Service, Konstantin Romodanovsky, informed the president that illegal migrants from Tajikistan commit more offenses than other visitors. Immediately after this, raids began, and a day later it was announced that the Federal Migration Service was ready to expel more than 300 migrants from Tajikistan. Representatives of the diaspora told Gazeta.Ru that only after Medvedev’s instructions they were no longer given work permits. The police began to conduct raids on construction sites.

Meanwhile, Tajikistan changed its rhetoric, President Emomali Rahmon spoke for the first time on the topic of the conflict around the verdict of Sadovnichy and said: “We must resolve this matter through diplomatic means, but within the framework of the constitutional laws of Tajikistan and in such a way as not to spoil allied and strategic relations with Russia.”

Later, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Gennady Onishchenko, said that a complete ban on the work of migrants from Tajikistan could be introduced for medical reasons, since they have recently been frequently diagnosed with tuberculosis and HIV infections. “Every fifth of the foreign citizens expelled from our country was a representative of Tajikistan,” Onishchenko said.