Statement of the Foreign Ministry of Abkhazia in connection with another fact of discrimination against citizens of Abkhazia

In connection with the refusal to grant the National football team of Abkhazia Schengen visas to attend the football championship «ConIFA», Abkhazian Foreign Ministry issued a statement about another fact of discrimination against citizens of Abkhazia.

SUKHUM -- The statement says: On June 11, 2015 it became known that the National football team of the Republic of Abkhazia was denied Schengen visas for participation in the European football championship of the Confederation of Independent Football Associations (ConIFA) in Hungary.

We consider the politically motivated decision of the Hungarian Embassy in Russia to refuse visas to players from Abkhazia as discriminatory and running counter to European values. The Hungarian Embassy staff, working systematically through a well-tuned discriminatory scheme, did not come up with anything else but to mockingly write to Abkhazian representatives that "the police will be engaged in the situation in case of arrival of the National Team of Abkhazia to the Championship ".

This shameful fact falls in line with the efforts undertaken by Georgia and its Western allies to isolate the Abkhazian society and distort information about the situation in Abkhazia, create anti-Abkhazian fables and plant misconceptions about the Russian-Abkhazian relations.

This unseemly discriminatory step taken due to Georgia’s hallooing is yet another link in the chain of anti-Abkhazian humanitarian crusade undertaken by various Georgia’s sympathizers in recent years. This is both the denial of participation of the Abkhaz children's dance group, which was initially invited and then, at the request of Georgia, excluded from the program of the international festival in Turkey, and the recent episode of protest from the Georgian Embassy in Germany against the participation of the delegation of Abkhazian Chamber of Commerce in the "Green Week - 2015" in Berlin, as well as other shameful facts. All this suggests that Georgia continues the war by other means, under cover of hypocritical expressions of concern for the "Abkhaz brothers and sisters." The People in Abkhazia are accustomed not to trust Georgian promises. The best answer to this hypocritical rhetoric will be to build defensive capacity of Abkhazia and deepening of Russian-Abkhaz cooperation in various fields, parameters and mechanisms of which are enshrined in the new Russian-Abkhaz Treaty of alliance and strategic partnership.

Abkhazian Foreign Ministry will once again firmly put the issue of discrimination of citizens of Abkhazia, which is perpetrated by Georgia and its allies in the European Union, at the upcoming next round of the Geneva Discussions on Security and Stability in Transcaucasia. We will consistently and fundamentally continue to protect the civil, political and socio-economic interests of the citizens of Abkhazia. No one has the right to violate the rights and freedoms enshrined in the fundamental international documents.