Prague, March 3 (CTK) – Charles University (UK) in Prague has expressed support for its Russian anarchist student Igor Shevtsov who faces expulsion to his homeland in an open letter that UK Rector Tomas Zima and Faculty of Arts Dean Mirjam Friedova sent to Interior Minister Milan Chovanec.
UK writes that the procedure as a result of which Shevtsov was deprived of his student visa and his work visa was not extended was absolutely inadequate. It calls on Czech authorities to take such steps that would not subject Shevtsov to “expulsion and the consequent threat to his life.”
According to the university, the student was politically persecuted in Russia and his expulsion would pose a threat of his further persecution because of his civic engagement. Moreover, Shevtsov, who has been a good student of ethnology, would not be able to complete his studies at the Faculty of Arts in Prague.
UK has been following Shevtsov’s case with great concern, it writes.
The letter was addressed to Chovanec, Tomas Haisman, head of the Interior Ministry asylum and migration policy section, and the ministry’s commission for decisions on foreigners’ stays.
Shevtsov was originally suspected of throwing Molotov cocktails on the house of Defence Minister Martin Stropnicky, but the court acquitted him of the charges last April, citing the lack of evidence.
However, the court banned him from public rallies for three years for being an accomplice of a man who sprayed inscriptions on the wall of the Prague-Ruzyne prison. The case remains open as the Supreme Court is yet to deal with it.
According to the Antifenix.cz website that supports him, Shevtsov was deprived of his student visa due to an administrative mistake that was made at the time when he was kept in a custody prison in relation to the attack on the house of Stropnicky. He did not apply for a student visa again because he would have to go to Russia, the website writes. He applied for an employee card instead, but the ministry rejected it due to his criminal record.
When Shevtsov came to the ministry to discuss the issue on February 23, the immigration officers took his passport away from him and locked him in a police cell for several hours. As his visa expired, the expulsion proceeding has been launched, Antifenix.cz writes.
