By Sarah Kolinovsky

After years of documenting war crimes in Chechnya, one Czech journalist turned lawmaker is slamming his country for denying asylum to a Georgian political refugee who he says will be a target for murder if he returns to his country.

In what experts say is an extraordinary move to call attention to the plight of asylum seekers, Czech Senator Jaromir Stetina publicized his support at a press conference earlier this week.

Timur Borchashvili, a Georgian refugee who claims he was an aide to former Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov, was denied asylum by the Ministry of Interior and was supposed to have left the Czech Republic February 7.

But in what the Czech Ministry of Interior calls a “strange” political move, Senator Stetina defied the law of his own nation and publicly protected Borchashvili, effectively helping the refugee to stay in the Czech Republic.

The senator has a personal connection to the refugee—he spent several years in Chechnya documenting crimes committed against Chechen civilians as a journalist.

During the press conference, Stetina presented evidence, including photographs and government documents, to the Czech Interior Ministry proving that Borchashvili was affiliated with an opposition party in Chechnya.

According to Stetina’s press statement, Borchashvili fled Chechnya in fear of the “the gunmen of the puppet Chechen President Kadyrov.” Stetina believes Borchashvili would be a target for murder under Kadyrov’s government because Kadyrov opposes the separatist rebel activity led by politicians like Borchashvili’s old boss, the former president Maskhadov.

And though Stetina has succeeded in getting noticed, there is no certainty that the senator’s efforts will actually help Borchashvili receive asylum.

“Something like this has never happened before,” said Ministry of Interior representative Vladimir Repka, referring to a politician’s interference with an asylum decision.

Stetina’s press conference came a few days after Russian human rights activists reported the murder of at least four young Chechen civilians who were shot and stabbed by Russian soldiers, according to Radio Free Europe.

Though the Czech Republic is a member of the EU, which has regulated asylum policies that do not discriminate refugees from any particular nation, Stetina maintains that his nation needs to do more for refugees.

“In 1968, when the Soviet army occupied Czechoslovakia, thousands of Czechs got asylum in other countries, and now we’re not able to give asylum to 10 or 15 more people? Why?” Stetina asked.

Despite Stetina’s stand, the Ministry of Interior may not amend their decision, according to Magda Faltova, director and legal counselor for the Association for Integration and Migration Counseling Center for Refugees.

Faltova explained that when asylum is denied, the applicant can appeal the decisions. Appeal cases, like Borchashvili’s, go to a court. However, courts cannot change the decision, but only send the case back to the Ministry for further review. It’s just another frustrating aspect of the asylum system in the Czech Republic, according to Faltova.

“There aren’t many positive decisions,” she said. “I’d like to see more positive asylum decisions.” Faltova explained that Czech authorities require authorities in any refugee’s country of origin to provide evidence of harassment or mistreatment that often doesn’t exist or is impossible to document.

Those requirements explain why so few people are given asylum in the Czech Republic, said Petra Tesarova, a lawyer for The Organization For Aid to Refugees, located in Prague. According to Tesarova, 24 Chechen refugees applied for asylum in 2009. A total of 75 people were granted asylum from all nations combined.

Despite criticism from refugee aid organizations, the Ministry of Interior insists that reviews of asylum cases are fair.

“All applications are objectively, rightly, carefully and professionally considered,” said Repka. “They are considered with all the respect to the relevant national, European and international law on human rights.”

Sarah Kolinovsky is a junior studying journalism and history. This piece was written for the International Reporting class.

This piece was written and reported last semester as part of the journalism program.

By Andrea F. Pagliai

Solitude is an obsession for Hana Jakrlová. She lives it, documents it, and by doing so, strives to combat it. She is 40 years old, divorced, and temporarily living in Prague. Never completely alone, Jakrlová has her art; because of her art, she has many colleagues turned friends. It’s with them that she started the “Laughter and Forgetting Project” (a title taken from a Milan Kundera novel) in an attempt to unite photographers from all over the world to document the Czech Republic, 20 years after the Velvet Revolution. The project’s first phase has already begun.

She has cancelled and rescheduled today’s meeting three times already. Balancing a seemingly endless list of projects, ideas, and people, it makes one wonder how she pulls it all together. But right now she’s at ease in her Vinohrady apartment – thought still recovering from a ferocious ear infection that hospitalized her during the “L.A.F. Project’s” Forum 2000 Oct. 11^th-13^th 2009 début, leading her to miss most of the exhibition.

In Jakrlová’s own words, “being a photographer is a pretty lonely occupation, so I thought it would be great to organize something with all these photographers.” With “L.A.F.” Jakrlová unites international photographers to portray everyday life in the Czech Republic – two decades after the fall of Communism. In many ways the project, “is a symbol of the Czech Republic,” she explains. The recent 20-year anniversary of the Velvet Revolution makes it all the more timely.

The project has two phases – the second will take place in 2010. Next year, a foundation will be established to support lesser-known photographers living in totalitarian countries. An emphasis will be placed on documenting conflict-free, daily life. “We want to capture these ‘grey zones’ in non-democracies, where unless something horrible happens [there] no one cares,” Jakrlová adjoins.

Jakrlová knows something about regimes such as these. Born in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, Jakrlová studied architecture in Brno and in Prague. Practicing only for a year, she realized it did not excite her.

In the mid ‘90s she worked two years as a set designer for films and spent the rest of her twenties traveling and studying photography all over the world. In 1997 she studied at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic, after which she decided to take on the craft professionally.

Though slow to find her passion, Jakrlová has been a professional photographer for the past 10 years

A decade into her career, Jakrlová has become “a prominent name in the art world,” according to Photographer Nadia Shira Cohen – a professional photographer living in Rome who participated in “L.A.F.”

Nathalie Belayche – a photographer, curator, agent, and project organizer – lives in Paris and has collaborated with Jakrlová in the past. Belayche shares, “[Hana] is part of the contemporary scene,” but adds, “When a photographer has a story or project, they always have to keep on going, always thinking of the next thing.”

In Belayche’s opinion, that is exactly what Jakrlová is doing with “L.A.F.” “It’s always annoying for a photographer to be reduced to a single project,” in regards to Jakrlová’s  most controversial works, “Big Sister Project.”

The project garnered Jakrlová a great deal of attention due its controversial subject matter. While “Big Sister” appears to be a photojournalistic story, Jakrlová quickly makes a distinction, calling it a “conceptual documentary project.”

The brothel, also named Big Sister, operates peculiarly. The brothel is almost entirely funded by interview viewers who observe live streams of the encounters between visiting men and prostitutes. Additionally, the men pay a small fee.

Jakrlová’s digital, color images are eerily poetic. Jakrlová specifically chose color to make the project the least photojournalistic as possible. She’s not making a statement with the content of the image – however doubtful it may seem (most show two people in the throws of gritty coition) – but instead with the juxtaposition of ideas: intimacy and solitude; color and life, contrasted with emotion-less expressions and business-like exchanges between two peoples.

However, don’t tell her its reportage, or that she’s a photojournalist. “I did it as an art project,” she says. With photojournalism, Jakrlová clarifies, “you tell a story and that’s it.” While the distinction might seem slight, to Jakrlová it’s essential.

Cohen explains that Jakrlová might shy away from the photojournalist label “because of the responsibility that comes with it.” Conceptualizing it puts a distance between subject and art.

Jakrlová shares: “The way I work – unless it is on assignment – is that I just follow a theme without exactly knowing what is going to happen. Then I look at the work and I see the theme that comes out.”

This is the case with her ongoing project, titled: “Solitude.” Finding solitude – usually in urban spaces – Jakrlová notes: “The more we are surrounded by people, the more we are lonely.” What interests her about “Big Sister” is, “how it defines the borders between the most private things: intimacy, sex, and the most public thing – Internet.” She elaborates, “ I am interested in the Internet and how it brings people closer but also alienates.”

However, Belayche hopes that now people will have another opinion of Jakrlová. She explains, “I think that it’s really well for her to do a project like “L.A.F.,” because she’s not only a photographer who goes into brothels. She felt like that was something she had to do, but hopefully [now] she’s doing something else.”

Before she photographed Big Sister, Jakrlová focused on Europe, working mainly in black and white. For “Ways of Communication,” she photographed the nine cities of the 2000 European Cities of Culture. The resulting collection work gave her the material for “Europeans,” an internationally published and exhibited show beginning in 2001.

This work not only got her noticed by London-based Eric Franck Fine Art Gallery in 2003, but also earned her a book deal. The idea behind her first 2006 photo-book, titled, In the Meantime: Europe, was conceived during her travels after the fall of Communism.

The book was published in 2006 with an introduction by former President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel, in which he writes, “I think Hana Jakrlová’s photographs not only show the vast diversity of our continent, but they also present a great range of emotions: hope, boredom, distress, pain, and also fleeting joy…yes, this is the world today.”

It is a great accomplishment to publish a book, have Havel write an introduction for it, and gain representation from Eric Franck. Despite this, the majority of people interviewed believe that “Big Sister” is the project that continues to garner the most attention for Jakrlová, for better or for worse.

Jakrlová also attracts personal attention for she is quite beautiful. Her hair, a swirling dirty blonde mix, generally holds a red flower, clipped in its midst. Speaking a mile-a-minute, she weaves in-and-out of Czech, French, German, Russian, and English.

A passionate woman, some think Jakrlová doesn’t always assess the risks before jumping into a new project.

“Her greatest strength is passion and it’s also her greatest weakness,” shares Stephanie Entin, a close friend living in Manhattan. This was the case with “Big Sister.” The emotional and mental difficulties made it so that the project took a toll on her life.

In 2007, Jakrlová took time away from “Big Sister” and photography in general. She went to work for the Forum 2000 organization. Working with all these people gave her the energy to put together the “L.A.F.” and show it at the Forum’s 2009 event, this past October.

One can see how her life is a reflection of her work – as is the case with many artists. Belayche specifies, “there are famous Czech photographers, but Hana is international.” However, her constant travels may increase her solitude. When asked if Jakrlová would settle down, Belayche says, “I hope she will,” chuckling, “but she has to slow down a little bit.”

Ondřej Nejedlý, a Czech lawyer and international adventure guide who led Jakrlová on a tour of Mont Blanc in 2009, attests to the fact that Jakrlová stands out from the rest. He remembers, “she’s far from a typical Czech person – she’s a universe type of person.”

For now, Prague is no longer enough. Hana’s independent and wild nature will take her to New York, in a permanent move taking place this winter. It is a move she has been contemplating for a while and it makes sense. Jakrlová says, “I have more contacts in New York than I do in Prague.”