Members of a Chechen musical ensemble applied for political asylum in Finland on Sunday. Liisa Lintuluoto of the foreigners' police unit of the Helsinki Police Department says that the 17-member group includes men, women and children.
Lintuluoto says that the asylum applicants have been placed in a refugee reception centre.
The news of the asylum application was first reported by the Kavkazcenter.com website on Monday. The controversial website is seen as a mouthpiece for opponents of the present administration in Chechnya.
Kavkazcenter learned about the event from Finnish IT entrepreneur Mikael Storsjö, who maintains the web pages on a Swedish, Lithuanian, and Finnish server.
Storsjö says that the applicants are members of the Zhovhar folk music ensemble, who arrived in Finland by train from Moscow on Sunday.
"I invited them to Finland. The musical group has been on the payroll of the Ministry of Culture.
Zhovhar, which means "pearl" is a well-known ensemble in Chechnya.
Finland has been granting asylum to Chechens since 2004. In the early part of this year Finland has granted asylum to 19 asylum seekers from Russia, out of a total of 75 applicants.
