Today staff of Mission of Ukraine to NATO, following the social distance rules with regard to COVID-19, formed tarak tamga - the symbol of Crimean Tatars – as a sign of support of the fight for the Crimean Tatar People’s rights.
While 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatar people by Stalin was an act of uncovered genocide, today Russian Federation Administration revitalises methods of totalitarian regime in their hybrid deportation of Crimean Tatars.
Deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944 is a crime of genocide and a manifestation of the criminal nature of the ethnic policy of Stalinism:
• in May 1944, during two days, more than 183 thousand Crimean Tatars were forcibly deported from Crimea to Siberia, the Urals and Central Asia as a form of collective punishment;
• it is estimated that during the first years of deportation up to 46% of Crimean Tatars perished from hunger, diseases, abuse and hard labour in so-called “special settlements”;
• the policy of ethnocide against deported peoples was not limited to evictions outside their ethnic territories, but was accompanied by looting of their property, destruction of their historical memory, language and culture;
• unlike the majority of other deported peoples, who got the possibility to return to their homeland in the late 1950s, the Crimean Tatars were deprived of this right. Only after independence of Ukraine, the real return of Crimean Tatars to their homes became possible.
With the illegal temporary occupation of Crimea in 2014, Russians launched second, now hybrid, deportation of Crimean Tatars causing artificial change in the demographic composition of the peninsula. It is accompanied by political, religious, cultural persecutions of the Crimean Tatars:
• since the beginning of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 more than 43 000 people left Crimea due to intimidation, persecution and fears over return of the past in its worst manifestations. Up to 500,000 Russians moved into the territory of Crimea (according to the human right NGO CrimeaSOS data);
• about 100 citizens of Ukraine, mostly Crimean Tatars, are illegally detained or convicted by Russia for political reasons on the territory of the Russian Federation and illegally occupied Crimea;
• on 26 April 2016, an illegal judicial body of the occupying state passed a decision to ban the Crimean Tatar Mejlis recognising its activities as the extremist ones. Thus, almost 2,500 members of national and local mejlises were outlawed;
• prior to illegal occupation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, there were 2,083 religious organizations on its territory. As of 2019 only about 700 have survived the campaign of persecution;
• independent media were wiped out. Since 2014 human rights activists recorded more than 300 violations of journalists' rights. Out of 3000 registered media outlets only 232 managed to pass "re-registration”. Obviously, they had to succumb to the occupation administration censorship. All 12 independent Crimean Tatar media outlets left the peninsula due to persecution;
• the occupying power continues to attack such inalienable rights of Crimean Tatars as education in the native language. While in 2013 the Crimean Tatar language was studied by 18,020 schoolchildren (8.6%) out of a total of 210,000 schoolchildren in Crimea, as of January 31, 2019 only 3.1% of children continued study the Crimean Tatar language.
International recognition of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 as a genocide shall be used as a tool to stop new crackdown on Crimean Tatars by Russian occupation administration.
• The dire human rights situation in Crimea under Russian occupation invokes the necessity to restore historical justice with regard to Crimean Tatars, to take actions to honour the innocent victims of deportation, condemn this crime of the totalitarian communist regime and recognize the deportation of Crimean Tatars from Crimea in 1944 as genocide of the Crimean Tatar people.
• At the same time, we call on international community to continue exerting pressure on Russia, strengthen sanctions to ensure the implementation of the ICJ Order and stop the oppression of the Crimean Tatar community in the temporarily occupied peninsula.