Russian woman who wrote a book about the life of illegal immigrants expelled from Norway
Madina Salamova was born in Vladikavkaz into a highly respected family in North Ossetia: her uncle is the famous surgeon Kaurbek Salamov, and her sister (according to some sources, Semfira, according to others, Zemfira) is married to the last Minister of Defense of the USSR, Air Marshal Yevgeny Shaposhnikov.
However, for some reason, Madina's family did not want to stay in Vladikavkaz, despite all their connections and acquaintances. As the head of the Moscow Ossetian community, Valery Kabolov, explained in an interview with Aftenposten, Madina's father, Khetag Salamov, could no longer live alongside representatives of the criminal world, who at that time made up almost the majority of the republic's population.
In short, in the early 2000s, the parents and their daughter went first to Moscow, and then further on to northern Europe. In 2004, the Salamovs settled in Norway, where they intended to obtain a residence permit and settle down permanently. However, local migration authorities refused the North Caucasian family the documents granting refugee status and the right to legal residence in the country.
Nevertheless, the Salamov family decided to stay in Norway and try to build a new life while remaining illegally. Madina quickly adapted to the unfamiliar country – learned the language, changed her real name to a fictitious one (she became Maria Bidzikoeva), graduated from the University of Trondheim with a degree in engineering technology, and then fell in love with a Norwegian, Eivind Tredal, and moved with him into a small apartment in Oslo...
Falling in love with a Norwegian citizen while living in this country is not a difficult thing, but graduating from university without any documents is a much more complicated task. Yet Madina managed it. "Yes, this is a unique situation. So unique that everyone is interested. Everyone wants to understand how it happened. A million questions. There must be a control system, but somehow it wasn't controlled," Madina-Maria's current lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, told Izvestia.
The question of how Salamova managed to graduate from university remains open, but in the current situation it is not so important. The main thing is that in Norway the girl was quite successful. But illegally. That is what Madina, who took a pseudonym incorporating the name of the heroine of the film "Amélie" starring Audrey Tautou, told about in her book.
In the fall of 2010, Marie Amelie published a book "The Illegal Norwegian", in which, as one might guess, she told about the life of a person who has no Norwegian documents (in the process of working on the book, the girl relied not only on her own experience, but also on the stories of illegal immigrants like herself).
Soon after its release, "The Illegal Norwegian" became a bestseller in Norway, excerpts from the book by Russian Marie Amelie were read on the radio, and the author was soon named "Norwegian of the Year" (this title was awarded to Salamova by the magazine Ny Tid). In short, Marie became a popular figure in Norway, which had denied her legal shelter.
On January 12, 2011, Marie Amelie gave a lecture at the Nansen Academy. When she finished her speech, she was detained – police pushed aside her friends and acquaintances who accompanied the writer and took her to the station. The next day, Marie Amelie's fans and human rights activists criticized the authorities' decision and even reminded the migration agencies that Fridtjof Nansen himself worked a lot in the Caucasus and paid attention to the fate of refugees.
However, no protests against Amelie's detention helped: the authorities stood their ground and did not want to make concessions to the popular writer. "If we make an exception, the signal will be interpreted in the outside world as meaning that it is enough to hold out in Norway for a long enough time and the authorities will make concessions. We will be flooded with illegal immigrants," the same Izvestia quotes Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg as saying.
Just in case, Marie Amelie was placed in a camp for illegal immigrants, where she spent several days. In the end, however, the Norwegian migration authorities decided that keeping the writer in isolation was pointless, and on January 18 she was released, with the obligation to check in with the police daily.
By the time Salamova was released, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already ruled that the illegal writer would be deported from the country. The girl was to be sent to her homeland, Russia, by January 27. There was not long to wait – on January 24, Amelie was arrested when she came to the police station to check in (according to other sources, she twice ignored a visit to the police station, for which she was detained).
Marie flew to Moscow with her boyfriend, as planned. What the couple will do now is unknown – neither she nor he spoke to journalists.
Norway has a fairly tough immigration policy that makes it difficult for foreigners to obtain legal status. It is possible to obtain the right to stay in the northern kingdom by receiving political asylum, marrying a Norwegian citizen, or obtaining a work visa with the right to settle in the country. You can also come to Norway for family reunification. In 2009, the number of legal immigrants was about 415,000 people, or about 8.9 percent of the country's population. According to rough estimates, more than ten thousand people live illegally in the country.
Head of the human rights committee "Civil Assistance" Svetlana Gannushkina stated that the 25-year-old writer will face great difficulties in Russia. "Mari will need to find a place to stay, submit documents to the migration service. Perhaps, first a temporary identity card will be issued. Then they will check whether she has citizenship; they may not find it in some archives, as often happens with us," Gannushkina noted. At the same time, the human rights activist noted that Mari has no relatives or housing in Moscow.
Meanwhile, the head of the Moscow Ossetian community Valery Kabolov stated that Mari Ameli is expected in North Ossetia. He assured that the girl has nothing to fear, it is safe in the republic and she might even like it there. But most likely, Mari will want to return to Norway, where her entire conscious life has passed, where her parents still live and where many support her.
A way out of the situation could be marriage – if Madina Salamova marries her boyfriend, a Norwegian citizen, she may be allowed to return to the country. However, as the writer's lawyer stated, she does not want to take what she sees as a "roundabout way."
Brynjulf Risnes noted that his client has other opportunities to return to Norway – she will have to contact the country's embassy in Moscow if she receives a job offer in the kingdom. And judging by the lawyer's words, that will not be a problem: Risnes claims that Mari Ameli has already received several job offers. In addition, the writer, who told about the life of an illegal immigrant in Norway, is expected to release a sequel to her book that so angered the kingdom's authorities.
P.S. Brynjulf Risnes also said that Norway's migration authorities must also consider the case of Madina Salamova's parents. When this will happen is not yet reported. But most likely, the Norwegian leadership will not meet the relatives of the scandalous illegal writer halfway, and they will go to their homeland following their daughter.
Lena AVERYANOVA.
