Press-release of the Embassy of Ukraine in Iran on the occasion of the 74th anniversary of Crimean Tatars’ exile.

Every May 18, the people of Ukraine, with deep sorrow, honor the memory of deported Crimean Tatars of the Crimea and the tragedy of 1944 on the Crimean peninsula.

May 18th – the Day of struggle for the rights of the Crimean Tatar people in Ukraine, which is also considered to be the day of commemoration of the victims of inhuman crimes of the Stalinist regime.

On May 11, 1944, Stalin issued a decree on compulsory evictions and the transfer of Muslims living in Crimea from their homeland to distant parts of the Soviet Union on the pretext that the Crimean Tatars collaborated with German Nazi forces on the groundless basis. In fact, there is no evidence of the “massive betrayal” of the Crimean Tatars, and the majority of the spies were killed or convicted in an individual cases.

The operation of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the former Soviet Union on the forced deportation of the Tatars began on May 18, 1944, and ended in less than two days on May 20. Totally, about 32 thousand SU soldiers were involved in this operation.

During the first wave of exile (May 18-20), 180 thousand people left the Crimea and 67 trains were used for this purpose. Exile continued in the following months, and the total number of expelled people from the native population of Crimea reached 200 thousand. The expulsion had serious consequences for the Crimean Tatars. Within a year, more than 30,000 Crimean Tatars died of hunger, sickness and fatigue. Serious damage also came to Crimea’s economy and agriculture, which was deprived of experienced workers.

Since 1968, the process of repatriation of the Crimean Tatars began in Crimea. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, more than 200 households returned home.

The massive return of the Tatars began in 1989, and after the declaration of independence of Ukraine, it continued widely. In 1991, the People’s Assembly of the Crimean Tatars (Mejlis) was established to provide the interests of the Tatar people in Ukraine and international organizations. Ukraine took full responsibility for the fate of all its citizens, including those who returned from their exile. In 2013, about 230 thousand Tatar people lived in the Crimea, which is 13% of the total population of Ukraine.

The Crimean Tatars fully support the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, which led to their active opposition to the temporary occupation of the Crimean peninsula by 2014 in Russia.

Crimean residents have spent more than four years under Russian occupation, a period in which human rights in the peninsula have deteriorated dramatically.

The illegal annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea by the forces of the Russian Federation led to violations of the rights of the Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainian citizens, as well as the pursuit of worry newspapers, political activists and representatives of civil society. Occupation officials have banned Crimean Tatars’ parliamentary activities, public and religious associations.

For example, among more than 3,000 media acting in the Crimea before the annexation, only 300 received the corresponding permissions, and 11 from 12 independent Tatar’s editions were closed.

Over the past four years, Crimean Tatars experienced kidnappings, arrests, mistreatment, tortures and murders by Russian authorities and occupation forces.

Meanwhile, today the Russian Federation continues to violate human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea by ignoring and violating the laws and decisions of international organizations and the United Nations, including the following:

– The UN General Assembly has repeatedly condemned the Russian Federation’s armed aggression against Ukraine by issuing decrees and resolutions, calling for human rights to be established on the peninsula of Crimea;

– The European Parliament, by adopting a resolution strongly condemning the violations of human rights of the Crimean residents, in particular the Tatars, and emphasized the right of the Crimean Tatars to hold political, legal, economic and cultural institutions in accordance with international law.

– A year ago, the International Court of Justice asked Russia to end discrimination against the Crimean Tatars, to abrogate the restrictions imposed on the Crimean Tatars so that they can maintain their representative bodies, including the Tatars. The court has also asked Moscow to provide Ukrainian-language education for some Crimean residents.

The Muslim community and religious institutions throughout the world express concern about violations of the rights of the indigenous population of Crimea, including Moulana Abdul Hameed, Sunni Imam of Zahedan, said: “The Muslims of the Crimea are oppressed, their freedom is restricted, Tatars are deprived of the right to decide their own destiny, they are not involved in the Crimean administration and they are treated in a very bad way. So, it is a matter of concern of all the Muslims of the world “.