FROM FAMILY METELNITSKY. MONTREAL, Desember, 1996.
To Amnesty International's London Office

Why WeTurn To Amnesty International?
1) Because our complains to Amnesty International from Israel played if not the main,a very important role during all the 2 immigration hearings in our case. 2) Because indirectly or even directly (from a particular point of view) they insinuated that we must be punished for our contacts with Amnesty International. 3) Because what happened during our immigration hearing here in Montreal (Quebec, Canada) is so incredible and horrible that will encourage human right violations everywhere on a wider scale. 4) Because during the hearing the immigration officer falsificated Amnesty International’s (and other human rights organizations’) documents and lied about them. 6) Because if a family comes to a country (which accepts refugees under the Geneva Convention act) but faces abuses, ungrounded accusations, threats, hatred and injustice within an immigration court room - that means a mayhem for the human rights, placing the very basis of human rights in jeopardy. 7) Because we are absolutely certain (and we have presented undenieble evidences to the immigration bord) that we are going to be beatten, abused or even killed if we will be turned back to Israel.

Any person with conciseness (a journalist, an immigration official, a human right organization official) could take a translator from Hebrew, go to a library or to an archive and find articles in Hebrew newspapers which have highly aggressive untie-Russian contest. And what about thousands of articles in Russian newspapers published in Israel about what can be called almost a genocide against “Russians”?

When they began to call my son to a draft board (because Israel has a compulsory military service) he asked an alternative military service each time they called him: because he was afraid of hostility towards “Russians” within the Israeli army and also because of the rule that a single son can not be taken into the front-line units against his will. They gave him no decision, but kept ordering him to came to the draft point again and again. One day a new routine order to come to the draft point arrived. My son was ordered to come one day - but the order have been sent one day later then the date of his appearance. A couple of other days past before he got the order. But as soon as he got it he immediately went to the draft board.

When he came they have arrested him incriminating him a disobedience to the order to come. No excuse, no explanation were admitted. Everything happened so fast that there is no doubt: they were prepared. So, they have submitted this order for him later then the date he was called to intentionally. He was accused in a refusal to come to the draft board (the ignored his voluntarial arrival) and in avoiding the military service. They have treated him like if he already was a soldier and flied from a military unit. He was also given a soldier's number as if he was a soldier when in reality he never entered the army and never wearied a military uniform. When he admitted that he’s going to become mentally ill because of the military prison they refused to give him a Russian-speaking psychologist, and the Hebrew- speaking psychologist couldn’t speak with our son, but wrote a report based on ungrounded insinuations. When later a Russian-speaking psychologist appeared he translated him that report but told that it is impossible now to dispute what the Israeli wrote.

When our son was in the military prison severe humiliations were committed over him. All the violations of the rules and of the moral norms in his case were too innumerable to mention them. During his imprisonment our son was transformed from a healthy person to a mentally ill boy. When he was released from the military prison (he was in the prison more then 3 months; no charges were posed against him, no court took place) the military medical committee recognized him as a mentally ill person. When he was just imprisoned he was recognized as a fully healthy person suitable to the military service.He received some treatment here, in Canada, and the immigration board know it. We did everything we could to release our son from the military prison. But the civil lawyers refused to take his case as soon as they heard about the conflict with the army. Some of them assaulted us refusing to take the case.We demanded a military lawyer but the military commandature in Jaffo denied us a military lawyer. We turned to all the possible places like Israel Bar Association, human rights organizations, Sharansky’s Zionist Forum, Israel and foreign media, state officials: nobody couldn’t or didn’t want to help us. Then we decided to send a letter to Amnesty International. A friend of us - a dissident and a journalist Lev G. - has contacted Amnesty International and later submitted several faxes to them. When the authorities realized that we complained to Amnesty International they released our son from the military prison.

We couldn’t live in Israel any more after what happened to us and to our son there, and also because we were afraid that our son can be arrested again if we will stay in Israel. The only reasonable solution for us was to escape. And the only way to do it was to become refugee claimants. We flied to Montreal in November, 1994.

We have submitted all the documentary proof we had to support our claim to the immigration board (committee). We also sincerely described what happened to us in our claim's atory without any distortion or exaggeration. But what happened to us in the immigration courtroom and between and after our 2 hearings is just incredible...

Why We Think Our Human Rights Were Violated By the Court?

Inside The Courtroom:

1)Some of the main documentary proofs (statements, affidavits, letters, receipts, articles, ect.) were ignored as if they never existed. 2)Other extremely important documents were mentioned but were ignored (if not - they might be an obstacle to what the judges incriminated us). 3) Other documents (including Amnesty International's confirmation of our complain) were mentioned as incomplete proof of particular events, when in reality they were given to support other events. In the same time documents which relate to these events were ignored. 4) The same way our words were ignored, too. For example, I was asked an insinuating question. My answer closed that question by a clear and unbeatable conterargument. So, what then? Then the same insinuation was repeated - but this time in an affirmative form: As if I said nothing. The same question could be given 2, 3, 5 times non-stop. If I gave the same answer again and again they shouted on me, used threats, aggression, incredible accusations to force me to change my answer. It’s clear that such a method violates moral and legal norms - and any hesitation by a refugee claimant under such an illegal psychological pressure can not be taken into consideration. 5) Too often they questioned us giving us no rights to response. They shuted us down replacing our eventual answer by their own - and later based their conclusions not on our answers but on their own statement posing it as our - not their - words. 6) It was repeated again and again that they doubt about our rights to appeal (for a refugee status) because our actions (when we were in Israel) weren’t a good solution. As examples of “good solutions” were mentioned: A demolition of our family, a criminal offense - and so on! 7) Several times the bord members expressed their dissaproval by the norms of democracy or by my aproval of the democracy laws. It is absolutely clear that our case was treated not according to Canadians laws but according to the rules and norms of Israel since - in the judges' eyes - we belong not to Canadien but to Israeli jurisdiction. This position - neither being ordered to the bord or being the product of the board itself - made the courtroom a part of Israel's territory. 8)The procedure of our immigration hearing wasn’t an investigation in our case but a pure pro-Israel’s propaganda. It’s goal wasn’t to detect whether or not our claim for refugee status is justified but to defend the image of Israel as a “good” country in an imprudent and abusing form. The depersonalization of our claim was done in an extreme form ignoring our personal history. So the only criteria chosen to support the bord's point of view was the very fact that we came from Israel. But the only admissible attitude to refugees is to base the decision on what happened to them personally, not on which country they flied. 9)The members of the board expressed their detestation of the human rights defense and verbally denied (directly or indirectly) a number of recognized human rights. 10)Sending requests to Israeli embassy and demanding some definite information about us, the immigration officer violated another moral and judicial principle: Not to announce his claim to the government of a country a refugee claimant escaped from. 11)Reading Amnesty International's and other reports the immigration officer distorted and sometimes falsified the documents. 12) Documents submitted by the Israeli government, by it’s dependents or by it’s embassy were considered as absolutely reliable and were voluntarily represented by the tribunal as non-debatable. In the same time documents that were represented by our lawyer (or our documents) - newspapers, statements, declarations, and so on - weren’t treated as equal to Israeli propaganda papers. More then that: At least our documents were completely ignored: As if they never existed. In the same time the documentation presented by Israeli government can’t be treated as an arbitrary source: Because Israel is involved. Meanwhile a number of our documents may be considered as more objective and independent. 13) The immigration officer used 1) an open lie 2) threats 3) desinformation; 4) expressed an unexplained malicious anger towards us; 5) claimed one thing to defend her position during our hearing and claimed the contrary during the hearing in G. family case (our cases are related, and G. was called as a witness to our second hearing); 6) she lied about what I said, about what she previously said , about what was said about the situation in Israel and so on; 7) her behavier towards us and G. family was so incredibly agressive as if she had a personal reason to punish us, or to exterminate us. 14) A 'yes" or "no" answer was demanded in situations when it was clear that such an answer is absolutely impossible. Demanding "yes" or "no" answer only they justified their decision not let us speak. 15) Despite our son’s mental illness and the evidence that he can not be asked the immigration officer asked him various questions in an aggressive manner. We understood that questions which she asked him were nothing more then a pure humiliation. 16) Requests which the immigration officer has submitted to Israel weren't justified or necessary.

Outside The Courtroom:
1) Our lawyer's translator did our story translation in an provocative and humiliated manner. She has chosen the declarative style instead of a description intentionally: to make our story sound ridiculous. She also sabotaged G.'s family story. When they came to Montreal G. put everything that happened to his family in Israel in writing and gave that piece of paper to the translator. She sabotaged the translation distorting the sense of his story, inserting her own inventions and sentences which sounded like provocations. He demanded a translation back to Russian from her French version , and she did it. She wrote it by her own hand. That manuscript is quite different from her French version. So, she did it to smoothen the distortions and to prevent G. from complaining. We have also other proofs of her sabotage. 2) She sabotaged the translations of newspaper’s articles as well. From one hand she exaggerated a number of descriptions of persecutions against Russian-speaking people “to do us a favor” (We think her goal was to discredit these articles). But on the other hand she excluded the most important paragraphs in her translation and gave the opposite meaning to the most important facts and conclusions. 3) The translator also sabotaged the translation of some official papers and other documents which we and G. prepared to support our claims. She told us that she has translated some of them and that she would find a translator from Hebrew -but it was a lie. If not our complains to the lawyer and an alert note we gave to him: No documents were translated. 4)We believe that a conspiracy between the immigration board and the translator took place. She was given an order to insert some particular phrases in G. story which he didn't want to see there. Later, in the courtroom, these phrases were used against him. These phrases were taken from articles he wrote before we escaped from Israel. Among them were the articles which G. hasn't presented to her or to our lawyer when she was doing the translation of his story. The members of the immigration board have exploited these phrases again and again: What leads to a suggestion that it wasn't occasionally.<BR> 6) There is a visible connection between the immigration officer - and Mr.Mark Kotlarsky, who lives in Israel. This gentlemen is an informer and a provocateur for Israeli authorities. He wrote an article about G. in 1994, in Israel. This article was written in a humiliated and sarcastic manner. Mr.Kotlarsky used the information which G. shared with him (as with his close friend ) against him. This article is outright slander, mystification, false insinuations and lie.. Before G. discovered that Mark Kotlarsky is the government agent he told him some things which G. never told to any other person. But during our immigration hearing and during the hearing of family G. these things were used by the immigration officer against us. We have no other explanation but that she’s in a contact with Mr.Kotlarsky. <BR> 7) Then, we have a reliable source of information which says that the immigration officer, the member of the immigration board in our cases, is an Israeli. Because of some reasons we’d like not to present the evidences for that. But this paragraph can play an informative role only. We have no pretensions to demand you to believe in that. From the other hand if the immigration officer is an Israeli (it can be confirmed, if somebody wants to find out) and the patriot of Israel (the last is too clear), she has no moral and - may be - legal rights to judge in refugees’ from Israel cases.8)When G.'s came to Montreal they gave G.'s wife’s birth certificate and it’s legal translation to our lawyer. Dispute the submission of that legal translation the lawyer's translator did her own translation. Now we discovered that she sabotaged (“refused”) to translate his wife’s parents’ nationality. There is a clear connection between that sabotage and the immigration officer’s tactics in that issue. The immigration court decision came to us at the 14 of December, 1996. The denial of our claim for a refugee status doesn’t reflects what really happened during our immigration hearings and has almost no connection with our claim. It is a masterpiece of rhetoric and profanation. This document is a next proof that an only decisive voice in our case was the voice of the immigration officer. She was a real judge - and the official judges were just mutes. The text of “their” negative decision reflects her style and based on her words exclusively: Her declarations she made during our hearings are reflected in this document pretty good. But this document ignore our answers completely: As if we kept silence all the time. When in reality some of our counterarguments completely discredited her insinuations. Nothing what the judges said during our immigration hearing is reflected in the immigration board decision, what means that the decision to deny our claim was made by the immigration officer only (without the judges) when according to the rules she has no decisive voice but only a consultative voice. The denial’s text is much the declaration about Israel then a statement of an immigration committee. It based on an acsioma that Israel is a democratic state (society). Such a declaration lays beyond the juridical matter: Because there is not in jurisdiction of an immigration board to decide which state is a democracy and which is not. This is a privilege of an academic institution but not of an executive board. Then it is an act of injustice to declare that Israel is a democracy in an imperative manner giving the refugee claimants no possibility to present their view and their counterarguments. It is clear from what was discussed during our immigration hearings that Israel has almost nothing in common with democracy. A permission to leave the country, an indication of nationality and the country of origin in special enternal passports, a supremacy of the religious laws over the civil code, a right for a military committee to decide who is a single son - and who’s not, an imprisonment for months without an official accusation: All these and hundreds of other Israeli laws are suitable may be for a mental hospital - but not for a “democratic society”. An opinion expressed by the document that we should not escape to Canada but should seek a help in Israel also has nothing what to do with the reality. We did everything to defend ourselves in Israel, and G. as a journalist and the human righta activist did everything that was possible to help us.He presented tenth of receipts of his complains to various ministries and organizations including the Ministry of Police, the Ministry of internal affairs and police, which were unanswered, to the immigration committee. The sad truth is that the committee just ignores everything. And recognize only the ungrounded Israel’s declarations. And the immigration officer - a person who sends faxes to Israeli embassy, obtains documents there;in other words who’s in tight connection with Israelis - is the only person who has a decidable voice in the refugees from Israel cases… Isn’t that sad?!

We can not go back to Israel under no condition, because
1) my husband and my son may be arrested by the militaries and imprisoned. I expressed my grounded fears about that during the hearings - and I can widen them now. 2) How can we go back to Israel if the immigration officer informed the Israelis about our refugee claim? In Israel where the ideology and the patriotic education play a very important role we will be considered as “traitors” and will be persecuted for that, too. 3) Persecutions against us in Israel were so strong that if we would be send back to Israel we will die. 4) After receiving so called “21-st military profile” my son has no future in Israel: Because in Israel people who are given that “profile” can not study, and nobody will employ my son with such a “profile”. 5) After all the persecutions we faced in Israel we feel fear - and we are afraid to go back; our fear, our psychological tremor towards Israel are so strong that there is impossible for us to live in Israel any more. In the name of God, in the name of Justice - HELP US!!!

CONCLUSIONS: our 2 immigration hearings (as well as hearings in G. case) have nothing in common with any legal procedure. They rather remine of an incuisition court or a secret political tribunal. This tribunal was arranged to punish us for flieding Israel and G. - for his ideological views - not to decide whether or not our (ours and G. family's) claim for a refugee status is justified. It was used for the political purposes: To “show” how just any information about human rights violations in Israel which not concerns Arabs can be calmed down - and to express a huge pro-Israel propaganda. They made clear that they treat our escape from Israel as a mutiny and will never admit the very fact that we are in Canada, in Quebec, not in Israel. Their words, their behavior - everything - was meant to show us that we could only deserve to be treated according to the Canadian rules after getting a refugee status. Before that we don’t deserve to be treated by Canadian rules. That’s why we were treated according to the rules and norms of Israel!!! It hard to find a more violative ritual of humiliations over the juridical norms then that… It is absolutely clear for the judges - as well as for ourselves - that we were severely persecuted in Israel, that all members of our family were severely abused and that the definite casualties were inflicted to our health, including our son. It is also absolutely clear to the judges that the deportation back to Israel is a death penalty for all members of our family. The tricky thing is that the immigration board expressed almost no doubt about persecutions we survived in Israel or even recognized the harshness of these persecutions. But the point is that they claim … we are guilty in the persecutions ourselves - and therefore they don’t worry about our souls and our lives… So, this is not even a tribunal, but a brutal act of a vengeance. sp; *<BR> The court's negative decision (resume) was made and expressed in an inappropriate manner without any clear connection to our real case. The decision was clearly made by the immigration officer, not by the judges. She is an Israeli patriot and she hates the Russian-speaking people. Everything what is expressed in the decision document is basicly a lie. The text of that document is politically motivated and juridically illegal. This is just the next stage of injustice.

SUPPLEMENTS (if required):

1.A LIST OF TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH OR FRENCH ARTICLES.
2.DOCUMENTS.
3.TAPES FROM THE IMMIGRATION HEARINGS.
4.OTHER MATHERIAL PROOFS.
5.OTHER DOCUMENTS.
6.DETAILED COMMENTARY TO THE HEARINGS.
7.COURT'S RESUME (DECISION).
8.DETAILED COMMENTARY TO THE COURT'S RESUME (DENIAL OF OUR CLAIM).
SINSERELY YOURS, LUDMILA METELNITSKY

telephone number: (514) 845-8216

address: Ludmila Metelnitsky, 3440 Durocher Str., Apt.1602, Montreal, Quebec, H2X 2E2, CANADA

AN ADJUSTMENT

We came to Israel in 1990; as many other people we had a hope for a better life. As the most of Russian-speaking people we were "welcomed" by a malicious anger, the state unti-Russian propaganda and the most severe discrimination. Our son was 15 when we came to Israel. Each of us (including our son) was assaulted, abused, beaten, discriminated against. The ignorance of what is going on in Israel with the Russian-speaking people can not make what our friends and we suffered from in Israel unreal. Batteries, assaults, abuses were real and happened to us in real life. If my son could come to school and could hear a discussion about the last article in a Hebrew newspaper, in which "Russians" were called sons of a bitch, prostitutes, fools and thieves: was it "unreal"? And the computer games in Hebrew accompanied by songs with words like "Russians, go home": They were as real as the real life. And the social climate in Israel is so horrible that if a child is beaten at school "because he's Russian" - he is forced to feel guilty himself as if he's guilty in not being an Israeli but being a Russian.

Any person with conciseness (a journalist, immigration official, a human right organization official) could take a translator from Hebrew, go to a library or to an archive and find articles in Hebrew newspapers which have highly aggressive untie-Russian contest. And what about thousands of articles in Russian newspapers published in Israel about what can be called almost genocide against "Russians"?

When they began to call my son to a draft board (because Israel has a compulsory military service) he asked an alternative military service each time they called him: because he was afraid of hostility towards "Russians" within the Israeli army and also because of the rule that a single son can not be taken into the front-line units against his will. They gave him no decision, but kept ordering him to come to the draft point again and again.
One day a new routine order to come to the draft point arrived. My son was ordered to come one day - but the order has been sent one day later then the date of his appearance. A couple of other days past before he got the order. But as soon as he got it he immediately went to the draft board.

When he came they have arrested him incriminating him a disobedience to the order to come. No excuse, no explanation was admitted. Everything happened so fast that there is no doubt: they were prepared. So, they have submitted this order for him later then the date he was called to intentionally. He was accused in a refusal to come to the draft board (they ignored that he arrived voluntarily) and in avoiding the military service. They have treated him like if he already was a soldier and flied from a military unit. He was also given a soldier's number as if he was a soldier when in reality he never entered the army and never wearied a military uniform. When he admitted that he's going to become mentally ill because of the military prison they refused to give him a Russian-speaking psychologist, and the Hebrew- speaking psychologist couldn't speak with our son, but wrote a report based on ungrounded insinuations. When later a Russian-speaking psychologist appeared he translated him that report but told that it is impossible now to dispute what the Israeli wrote.

When our son was in the military prison severe humiliations were committed over him. All the violations of the rules and of the moral norms in his case were too innumerable to mention them. During his imprisonment our son was transformed from a healthy person to a mentally ill boy. When he was released from the military prison (he was in the prison more then 3 months; no charges were posed against him, no court took place) the military medical committee recognized him as a mentally ill person. When he was just imprisoned he was recognized as a fully healthy person suitable to the military service. He received some treatment here, in Canada, and the immigration board knows it. We did everything we could to release our son from the military prison. But the civil lawyers refused to take his case as soon as they heard about the conflict with the army. Some of them assaulted us refusing to take the case. We demanded a military lawyer but the military commandature in Jaffo denied us a military lawyer. We turned to all the possible places like Israel Bar Association,human rights organizations, Sharansky's Zionist Forum, Israel and foreign media, state officials: nobody couldn't or didn't want to help us. Then we decided to send a letter to Amnesty International. A friend of us - a dissident and a journalist Lev G. - has contacted Amnesty International and later submitted several faxes to them. When the authorities realized that we complained to Amnesty International they released our son from the military prison.

We couldn't live in Israel any more after what happened to us and to our son there, and also because we were afraid that our son can be arrested again if we will stay in Israel. The only reasonable solution for us was to escape. And the only way to do it was to become refugee claimants. We flied to Montreal in November 1994.

I don't want describe the whole farce of so called "immigration hearings". There were 2 of them.
Any positive decision couldn't be taken in our case since the immigration officer assigned to our case is a Jew, probably, an Israeli, and she hates the Russian-speaking people. We prove in our later appeal that it was her who took the decision in our case.
Several months ago when our son was on a party, one gay called him out and took him to a car.
That gay was drunk. When driving the car he damaged several parked vehicles. Later we discovered that he took another person's car.
Despite the clear evidences that not my son drove the car police accused him. We also have an audiotape where that other boy recognizes that he (not our son) was guilty. There is a recorded telephone conversation on this tape. Just everything was ignored during the first criminal hearing in that case. Of cause it looks as if my son accompanied that gay - it's enough to accuse him. But you must take into consideration that he is psychologically, mentally ill after Israeli military prison. A healthy person could refuse to hear what that gay told him but my son is a sick person!
I believe that this was MOSSAD's provocation, and I believe that the politicians are still behind everything what is going on around us.
If somebody can do something to help us to avoid deportation to Israel, HELP US!!!
DO SOMETHING!!!
Sincerely yours, Ludmila Metelnitsky
Please, call us to (514)-845-8216. Montreal.

Ludmila Metelnitsky
December 1996 - March 1997
Montreal