Epress.am News from Armenia
An Azerbaijan family's request for political asylum in the Republic of Armenia (RA) has been granted, said head of the State Migration Service of the RA Ministry of Territorial Administration Gagik Yeganyan on April 6, as reported by News.am [AM]
As conveyed earlier by Armenia's National Security Service (NSS), on January 29, citizen of Azerbaijan, Baku resident Javid Orujev (born 1976) with his wife and three young children arrived at the Bagratashen checkpoint on the Armenian-Georgian border and appealed to the Armenian authorities with a request for political asylum. The NSS said that Orujev was forced to cooperate with Azerbaijan's special services after marrying a woman of Armenian descent, Baku resident Roya Mirzoeva (born 1983).
According to the decision of the Armenian authorities, the family was given refugee status. "Their claim was satisfied; we've recognized them as refugees and provided asylum in the Republic of Armenia," said Yeganyan.
The Azerbaijan side has not yet commented on Armenia's granting Javid Orujev and his family political asylum.
Earlier, Azerbaijani news agency APA reported some details about this Azerbaijan family who had crossed the border. Javid's mother, Mirvari Orujeva, told the news agency that her son had a strained relationship with his brother, who works as a technician with Azerbaijan's public television broadcaster. Orujev's father was born in Shushi in 1945, worked as a high school teacher, and died in 2008.
According to her, Javid wanted to renounce his Azerbaijani citizenship and go through Armenia to seek political asylum in a third country.
Javid got married for the first time in 2008, but the couple divorced after one year when it became known that his wife was already married. "In 2009, Javid met Roya Mirzoeva on the internet and started a family with her. They had three children. Mirzoeva was likewise married once before and took her husband's last name," said Javid's mother.
According to her, Mirzoeva's father is composer Rauf Aliyev from Shushi, and her mother, Aliyeva Alia Davudovnan. The late father of Javid's mother-in-law (Mirzoeva's grandfather) is Davud Mirzoyan, a native of Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian, while his wife (Mirzoeva's grandmother) was a Polish Jew.
Orujeva says that Javid worked for three years in a private security service, after which he was unemployed and always dreamt of living abroad. From 2001–2003, he lived in Russia, but then he returned. "In 2010, with his wife and child he again left for Russia, and from there, Norway. But in September 2013, he again returned to Azerbaijan. The government of Norway did not give them permanent residency. He said that he received unemployment benefits. In Norway, they had two other children, whom he named after his lawyer — Norman Bruijn and Samuel Bruijn."
"After returning from Norway, to obtain a permanent residence permit he repeatedly appealed to the German and Israel embassies in Azerbaijan, but they didn't grant it," said Javid's mother.
Mirvari Orujeva believes that the idea for getting a residence permit in a third country by going through Armenia was given to her son by either the embassies or friends in Norway, who knew about his wife's Armenian roots.