Escaped from Russia 20 years ago, now she is a national threat to Hungary

Under ideal circumstances, Iraida Choubina, or as her documents have stated for years now, Gáborné Nagy, should have spent her 59th birthday surrounded by her loving family. Though a Russian national, she has been living in Hungary since the beginning of the 2000s. Now she is worried about whether she can stay in Hungary with her loved ones or be forced to leave the country she has called home for almost 20 years.

The Immigration and Asylum Office has deprived her of her refugee status back in November, of the document she acquired in 2007. Moreover, she was proclaimed a subject of deportation from Hungary. Now she fears she will really be kicked out of the country.

She and her family are trying everything so that the decision would be reconsidered and she would not have to return to the country she fears. She told 444.hu what made her, as a young mother, flee Russia and the KGB and seek refuge in Hungary, and what actions led to her being declared a threat to national security.

Iraida Choubina was born into a Jewish family in 1962. She got married at an early age, and she and her husband started a successful business of organising educational trips to America for kids and youngsters. Their programmes were always organised by her husband, so he travelled quite a lot to the USA. Iraida claims this was the reason the successor of the KGB,

the Federal Security Service, reached out to her husband in 1997 to make him provide information from the American circles he was in contact with.

When he rejected the attempt to recruit him, the organisation started a legal procedure for fraud, based on false and artificially created accusations. When he escaped the procedure, the security service tried to look for him through his wife.

They told her she could not go on with her job if she did not make her husband go back to Russia. Instead, Iriada travelled abroad with a valid passport, with her 3 kids, pregnant with her 5th child, as her oldest son was already studying in the United States. She chose Hungary as she could enter the country without a visa in 1998. Apart from loving the country, it reminded her of her home. However, personnel from the Federal Security Service appeared quite fast in Budapest to find out her husband’s whereabouts.

With the help of a local Jewish community, she managed to obtain a visa to travel to the USA. When her visa expired, however, she decided to go back to Russia with her two youngest children, thinking that maybe enough time had passed since she left. She was wrong as,

in January 2000, she was stopped by the police on the street to check her documents, then she was arrested and taken into custody. Just as her husband, she was also accused of fraud

committed in a Jewish cultural centre she used to work for. She claims all the accusations were untrue, simply an excuse to keep her locked up for the total time of the investigation, which lasted 6 entire months. In the end, she was released as allegations proved to be false.

She took her two kids who had been taken care of by their grandmother and travelled back to Hungary, where she applied for asylum. In order to evaluate her situation and judge her case, she had to talk about what happened to her in prison in Russia and to prove that she was imprisoned without any real reason. It took her almost 4 years. It was at her third attempt to officially seek asylum when at her hearing

she finally talked about all the suffering, torture, and sexual abuse she had to endure. 

The psychiatric evaluation identified her as suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), proposed her medication and therapy.

The first time she filed her application for asylum, it was rejected by the Immigration Office saying that there was no proof Russia was chasing her, violating the Geneva Convention. Experts on external affairs and refugee matters said that it was highly unlikely from the Russian authorities to arrest her solely because her husband was wanted, surely it was because she was an accomplice in his businesses. And whether it was legal or not that she was held imprisoned for 6 months was not for the Hungarian authorities to decide.

She claims she even had to withhold a request due to the Security Service still pressuring her. Meanwhile, she tried in Austria and Switzerland as well, but she was always redirected to Hungary.

In 2005, she applied for asylum for the 4th time but was rejected again, on the grounds that a complete show trial was unreal and Russian authorities looking for her even in Hungary only because of her husband was impossible. 

Iraida went to court against this decision, and

finally, in 2007, the Court of Budapest granted her and her children asylum.

The court explained its decision by stating that there was, in fact, a chance that after travelling back to Russia, the secret services would put pressure on her. The court said there were credible reports on the Secret Service having the authority to act even outside of the country.

They finally thought they could live in peace and start a new life in Budapest. Her kids grew up and started their own families, she set up a business, and after 30 years of marriage, she got divorced and married a Hungarian man she had met in Budapest.

Everything she had to endure left a mark on her and on her health; she has heart issues and high blood pressure, and she even retired from work. She made Hungary her home and filed for citizenship 8 times already, but she was always rejected. She was sad, but she never imagined that even her minimum safety would be taken away from her. That is exactly what happened last October when she received a letter announcing that the procedure to revoke her asylum had been started.

She tried to explain in court all her fears, what would happen to her if she would have to travel back to Russia, and all the explanations the Court of Budapest gave in 2007 to grant her the asylum in the first place. It was all in vain, as a month later, the decision revoking her status arrived. The explanation involved her not being married to her first husband anymore, thus the circumstances giving grounds to her application 13 years ago are not present anymore. Moreover, and this is the more astonishing part, even if the first point was existent, she still could not stay in Hungary as

the Counter-Terrorism Centre (TEK) deemed her a threat to national security.

They are trying to go against the verdict and make the court see her application for asylum as still valid, to start a new investigation, or to prohibit her deportation considering her circumstances: her health, her age, and the fact that her whole family lives in Hungary.

The strangest part of the story is, first of all, the fact that TEK has no actual explanation as to why she is considered a threat to national security. Secondly, the judgement of 2020 compared to that of 2007:

the new explanation states that there is no evidence the Security Service has ever used physical force, and they say changing your country is the perfect way to get rid of the aim of recruitment to the organisation.

They reject the possibility of retorsion upon returning to Russia as the country is a ratifier of many treaties and conventions on international human rights.

An independent expert on Russia says, however, that the new decision is made on an assumption as, since 2012, based on a change in the law, it is much easier in Russia to convict someone for high treason or spying. Moreover, just the fact that Russia is part of the European Convention on Human Rights does not mean anything as the country simply does not comply with a huge majority of those decisions.

Why was her case reopened and reviewed then? According to Hungarian law, automatic reviewing is only needed if someone acquired asylum after 2013. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee claims that they have encountered several cases like that of Iraida in the past years when foreigners who have been legally residing in Hungary for quite a long time are suddenly deemed to be a threat to the security of the country. The basis of the accusation is not public either, and even though, legally, it is possible to ask for it, they almost never reveal it. This led to the fact that today, in Hungary, it is practically impossible to acquire asylum, let alone for a Russian national.
This can very easily have political-diplomatic reasons.

Iraida is currently under legal protection, meaning that until the court decides about her case, deporting her from Hungary cannot be carried out. 

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Source: 444.hu