Numerous complaints and appeals from human rights defenders, activists and cultural figures from Adygea, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia have yielded their first results. The Kabardino-Balkarian Ministry of Nationalities sent recommendations to the Russian government to revise the federal bill on the repatriation of Circassians and other peoples of the North Caucasus to Russia. The law was previously criticized for its discriminatory nature due to the mandatory requirement to speak Russian.

The Kabardino-Balkarian authorities recommended that the authors of the bill soften it by setting out the conditions as follows: “A foreign citizen or stateless person recognized as a compatriot, who speaks Russian or the language of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation and freely uses it in family, everyday and cultural spheres, has the right to apply for repatriation to the Russian Federation.”

Earlier, Circassian diaspora activists called on the Russian authorities to abandon the requirement for mandatory knowledge of the Russian language, as stipulated by the bill on repatriation. They emphasized that this contradicts the Constitution of the Russian Federation and threatens the federal structure of the country.

“In the countries where compatriots live, there are no conditions for systematic study of the Russian language, and therefore it is advisable to organize training after returning to their homeland, as has already happened in the case of Circassians from Kosovo and Syria. It would be fair for compatriots who speak any of the state languages ​​of the subject of the Russian Federation to be granted the right to repatriation. Otherwise, we are talking about discrimination on the basis of nationality, violating the rights of peoples to self-determination,” the appeal said.