Occupation Protest

From Yahoo:
"Crimea Tatars seek to block peninsula to protest Russian annexation"

 

Hundreds of pro-Kiev activists from Crimea's Tatar community on Sunday launched a blockade of roads from Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula to protest Russia's seizure of their home region.  Accompanied by members of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist Pravy Sektor group, protesters from the Muslim Tatar community used concrete blocks to partially seal off the three roads linking mainland Ukraine to Crimea in an attempt to halt the delivery of goods.  Tatar leaders said they were aiming to block supplies to protest the "numerous violations of their rights by Russian authorities". "Our goal is to end the occupation of Crimea and to restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine," Refat Chubarov, one of the leaders of the Crimean Tatar community, told journalists. An AFP journalist at the scene reported that dozens of lorries were backed up at two crossing points into Crimea but drivers and Ukrainian officials said this was due to lengthy custom checks on the Russian side. Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014 after deploying thousands of special forces troops following the ouster of Kremlin-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev.  Most of the 300,000-strong Tatar community strongly opposed Russia's annexation of Crimea, condemned by Kiev and the West as an illegal land grab, and have since faced a crackdown that has seen activists detained and leaders barred from the region.   The Tatars were exiled by Stalin to Central Asia during World War II, with almost half perishing in harsh conditions. They only returned to Crimea at the end of Soviet rule. The demonstrators said they hoped their actions Sunday would help to ease pressure on the members of the community, secure the release of detained Tatar activists and see restrictions on Tatar media lifted. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko later said on national television that he would raise the issue of "the rights of the Tatars of Crimea" at the General Assembly of the United Nations later this month. Between 10,000 and 15,000 members of the Tatar community -- which has its own distinct language and culture -- are thought to have fled Crimea since the Russian flag was raised there. Despite the takeover by Moscow, Crimea -- linked to Russia by only an over-burdened ferry link -- is still reliant on Ukraine for some of its energy and food supplies. The region has been subjected to tough Western sanctions that have seen it cut off from international banking systems and Western firms pull out.

 

^ Ukraine claims the Crimea to be Ukrainian. Russia claims the Crimea to be Russian. The Tartars are the only native group that can decide which country, if any, they want to be a part of. For nearly 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union they (the Tartars) have chosen to have autonomy within the Ukraine and have been pretty happen. Then the Russians decided to invade, occupy and annex the Crimea and try to make it part of Russia. The Russians have taken the same stance that Communists did and have tried to wipe out Crimean culture, language, traditions and way of life inside the Crimea. In the 1940s Stalin deported all the Crimean Tartars out of the Crimea and replaced them with Russians - the same way he did in the Baltics. The Tartars have since returned and are trying to reestablish their identity after decades of exile. Now with the Russians in control of the Crimea the Tartars are once again under attack and made second-class citizens on their own land. While this current protest won't force the Russians to give back the Crimea to the Ukraine and give the Tartars their land and rights back it does a lot to keep their plight in the news so that people in Russia, the Ukraine and the rest of the world know and remember that the Crimean Tartars already chose what they wanted (to be part of the Ukraine) and were flourishing for 20 years until the current annexation. ^

http://news.yahoo.com/crimea-tatars-seek-block-peninsula-protest-russian-annexation-202656386.html