Germany to restore frozen humanitarian visa programme helping anti-war Russians

The German government will restore its humanitarian visa programme helping citizens of authoritarian states, including Russia and Belarus, at risk of persecution for human rights activism gain entry to the country, German public broadcaster DW’s Russian service reported on Saturday.

The initiative, which is thought to have helped over 2,600 anti-war Russian activists, politicians, organisations, and journalists safely relocate to Germany, was frozen in late July, sparking criticism by several anti-Kremlin Russian figures and organisations.

Responding to DW’s request for comments, both the German Foreign Ministry and Interior Ministry said that the country would resume allowing individuals “particularly at risk due to their activities in defense of freedom of speech, democracy and human rights” to enter the country, calling the program an “important foreign policy tool”.

However, the German Foreign Ministry noted that the separate “accelerated procedure” that had expedited the entry of citizens of Belarus, Russia, and Iran, would no longer be applied.

According to Anatol Labiedzka, a parliamentary cooperation advisor to Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya who met with representatives from the German Foreign Ministry on Saturday, it is not yet known when exactly the visa programme will be resumed.

In response to initial reports that the humanitarian visa programme would be resumed, the Russian human rights initiative InTransit, which supports at-risk individuals in relocating from Russia, praised the decision as both “important” and a “positive signal” from Germany.

The organisation also credited former Russian political prisoner Alexey Moskalyov and his daughter, Maria Moskalyova, with helping to highlight the programme’s suspension, and thanked NGOs, politicians, and activists involved in the the #SaveHumVisa22 campaign for raising awareness.

Moskalyov, who served a one-year sentence in Russia after his daughter drew an anti-war picture during an art class at school, made headlines earlier in August when he and his daughter were denied entry to Germany on a humanitarian visa.