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Vol. 80/No. 20 May 23, 2016
Ban on Crimea Tatar council is ‘declaration of war’
BY ARLENE RUBINSTEIN
On April 26, the Supreme Court of Crimea banned the Mejlis, the elected
council of the Crimean Tatar people, following a similar action by the
Russian Justice Ministry the previous week. It affects every aspect of
the Mejlis functioning: holding meetings and protests, publishing its
views in the press and using bank accounts.
The move is the most serious in an escalating offensive to intimidate
and silence the Tatars’ opposition to Moscow’s occupation of Crimea and
their fight for political rights. It is “a declaration of war against
the Crimean Tatars,” said Mustafa Dzhemilev, a historic leader of the
fight for national rights and former head of the Mejlis.
The Tatars, a Turkic people who were among Crimea’s earliest
inhabitants, today comprise some 12 percent of the peninsula’s
population. May 18 will be the 72nd anniversary of the deportation of
the entire Crimean Tatar population on orders of then Soviet Premier
Joseph Stalin, who slandered them en masse as agents of Adolf Hitler
during World War II. Almost half of the population of 200,000 died in
the forced journey to Uzbekistan and other parts of the Soviet Union in
1944. Tatars began to return to Crimea in large numbers in the 1990s.
Tartars overwhelmingly supported a united, sovereign Ukraine and opposed
the March 2014 military takeover of Crimea by thousands of Russian
troops after the ouster of pro-Moscow Ukrainian president Viktor
Yanukovych by popular protests. Under agreements dating back to the days
of the Soviet Union, Moscow already had some 26,000 soldiers based in
Crimea. A referendum for “independence” at gunpoint was used to justify
the annexation of the peninsula by Moscow.
The big majority of Crimean Tatars refused to participate in the
referendum. Moscow responded by barring Dzhemilev from his homeland. Met
by 5,000 Tartars who came to greet him, Dzhemilev attempted to enter
Crimea in May 2014 and was blocked by riot police. Two years later, no
one has seen the document excluding him from Crimea, and the case
against him remains a state secret.
The latest criminalization of the Mejlis is based on the Russian Law On
Countering Extremist Activity. Natalya Poklonskaya, the Crimean
prosecutor appointed by Russia, argued before the court that the Mejlis
is supported by international terrorist organizations and aims to
destroy Russia’s territorial integrity.
Last October Ruslan Balbek, deputy prime minister of Crimea, claimed
that Dzhemilev was recruiting fighters for Islamic State in order to
“later use their military experience for subversive activities in
Crimea.” Dzhemilev, who has backed nonviolent resistance to Moscow for
decades, said the slander “could not be further from the truth.”
The banning comes on top of police sieges of Crimean Tartar
neighborhoods and raids on mosques, schools and homes. Frame-up charges,
beatings and disappearances have become common.
Along with Dzhemilev, Mejlis leader Refat Chubarov is banned from Crimea
for five years. It’s current leader, Akhtem Chiigoz, is imprisoned on
frame-up charges of having organized “mass disturbances” in 2014,
referring to the thousands who came out to meet Dzhemilev.
“There can be no understating how serious this move is,” wrote Halya
Coynash of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group about the banning
of the Mejlis. “Nobody is in any doubt of the real reason for this move,
namely the implacable opposition of the Mejlis to Russian occupation.”
Russian officials, as part of justifying the banning of the Mejlis,
point to a blockade of commercial traffic into Crimea from Ukraine
initiated by Dzhemilev and other Tatar leaders last fall protesting the
Russian annexation of the peninsula that attracted participation from
the Right Sector and other rightist forces. The blockade petered out
after unknown forces blew up electrical pylons that supplied power to
Crimea. These actions gave Moscow a handle and set back the Crimean
Tatars’ struggle.
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