A lawyer from Kyrgyzstan Azizbek Ashurov has been selected as the 2019 winner of the UN Refugee Agency’s Nansen Refugee Award for his assistance to thousands of stateless people in the republic. UNHCR reports.
Azizbek Ashurov, through his organization Ferghana Valley Lawyers Without Borders, has helped over 10,000 people to gain Kyrgyz nationality after they became stateless following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, including 2,000 children.
«I cannot stand still when I see an injustice,» said Ashurov. «Statelessness is injustice. A stateless person is not recognized by any state. They are like ghosts. They exist physically, but they don’t exist on paper.»
Motivated by his own family’s difficult experience of achieving citizenship after arriving from Uzbekistan in the aftermath of the dissolution, Ashurov helped to found Ferghana Valley Lawyers Without Borders in 2003 to offer free legal advice and assistance to vulnerable displaced, stateless and undocumented people in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan.
«Azizbek Ashurov’s story is one of great personal resolve and tenacity,» said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Recall, Kyrgyzstan has become the first country in Central Asia that put an end to statelessness.
