Police in Crimea warned the Deputy Head of the Mejlis about holding rally
The Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, Ilmi Umerov, has said that on the 17th of May 2016, he was visited by police who warned him that any activities planned for the 18th of May will not be allowed. The Mejlis had previously organized events to take place on Memorial Day in remembrance of the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars.
“I was referred to as the organizer of a public event. I then had to explain to members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia that on the 18th of May, the Regional Mejlis will place flowers at the memorial plaque on the wall of Bakhchisarai train station. There will then be a moment of silence at 12 pm. A prayer will then be held at 12:45 pm in honor of the victims of this deportation,” Umerov posted on Facebook.
Umerov said that “both of these events are not meetings. There are no notifications in the administration about holding any meetings. I am therefore not the organizer of a public event and I refused to sign the warning given to me,” Umerov concluded.
However, the head of Russia-controlled Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, has said that there are no intentions of prohibiting the mass events to be held on the anniversary.
The First Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, Nariman Jelal, said that Crimea’s Russian-controlled authorities had not agreed to holding events to mark the anniversary.