Russian court overturns decision to deport Afghan journalist convicted of illegal border crossing

St. Petersburg’s Krasnoselsky District Court has overturned the decision to deport Afghan journalist Kobra Hassani from Russia, according to the court’s press service. Hassani was charged with illegally crossing the Russian border.

The court’s decision noted that a travel ban is in effect for Hassani, therefore, “her forced deportation from the territory of the Russian Federation is impossible.” Hassani will also be released from the temporary detention center where she has been held for over eight months, as the court considered extending her time there “an excessive restriction of her rights and freedoms.”

On February 13, St. Petersburg’s Kirovsky District Court sentenced Hassani, who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power, to two years in a correctional facility after she was found guilty of attempting to illegally leave Russia for the E.U. as part of a group and by prior conspiracy. The court accounted for Hassani’s time in pre-trial detention and stated that her sentence had been served.

On February 14, as Mediazona wrote, the court considered Hassani’s appeal of the Kirovsky District Court’s decision but ruled for her to be fined 5,000 rubles ($54) and to be deported from the country.

Kobra Hassani worked for Afghan television until August 2021. She left Afghanistan shortly after the Taliban seized power in the country. The journalist enrolled in an English-language program at Kyiv University, but with the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she decided to move to Europe. To do this, she turned to travel brokers who promised to take her to Poland, but instead, they took her through occupied territory to Moscow. In Russia, Hassani contacted another broker who promised to take her to Europe through St. Petersburg. She and the others in her group were detained near St. Petersburg's Great Port.

Hassani’s defense filed an application for asylum on grounds of the imminent danger she faces in Afghanistan. A former colleague of Hassani’s in Kabul told BBC News Russian that if deported, the journalist faces imprisonment and torture because she wrote about women’s rights. The Russian Interior Ministry’s migration service disagreed with this argument and refused Hassani asylum.