Ukrainian Parliament urges international community to recognize the genocide of the Crimean Tatars
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine appealed to the UN, the European Parliament, PACE, the OSCE and world leaders to honor the memory of the victims of the Crimean Tatar genocide and to condemn the ongoing violations of the rights and freedoms of Crimean Tatars.
240 members of Parliament voted in favor of the resolution on May 11th. It was supported by the Opposition Bloc party, the Vidrodzhenya party and the majority of the deputies of the Radical party.
According to the document, Parliament is urging the world community to recognize the genocide of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 and to participate in honoring the memory of the victims that will take place on the 18th of May.
The Verkhovna Rada also urges international organizations to condemn the banning of the Mejlis by Russian authorities in Crimea and the violations of the rights of Crimean Tatars referred to by the Parliament as ‘ethnocide.’
“The systemic pressure from Russian authorities on the Crimean Tatar people, the repressions of Ukrainians on ethnic grounds, the ethnically and politically motivated persecution of Crimean Tatars, their governing bodies, such as the Mejlis and the Kurultai (a council of national minorities) of the Crimean peoples that have taken place in the occupied territory of Ukraine since the beginning of the occupation is a deliberate policy of ethnocide against Crimean Tatars,” the appeal reads.
On 18 May 1944, the first group of Crimean Tatars was sent from the peninsula to Central Asia. More than 180,000 people were deported.
In April 2016, the Supreme Court of the Crimea banned the activities of the Mejlis on the peninsula.