Banned Memorial

From UNIAN:
"Crimean Tatars banned from honoring 1944 deportation victims"

 

Russian occupation authorities of Crimea banned memorial events dedicated to the forcible deportation of Crimean Tatars (the indigenous population of the Black Sea peninsula), under Stalin, according to Ukraine Today.  "As expected, Russian invaders forbid the holding of commemoration events all over the Crimean peninsula that were to take place on May 18," Refat Chubarov, the Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, wrote on Facebook, Ukraine Today reports. According to Chubarov, Russian occupants are doing their best to make Crimean Tatars participate only in official events organized by Kremlin-backed authorities and their supporters.The Mejlis (the elected government body of Crimean Tatars) suggested Crimean Tatars would meet near memorial stones, statues, and sites associated with the tragic event that occurred on May 18, 1944.  Crimean Tatars plan to hold a minute of silence to pay tribute to the deportation victims. There are numerous reports on violations of human rights in the Russia-occupied Crimea. On March 17, Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization, published a statement about the harassment, intimidation and arbitrary legal actions against Crimean Tatars, an ethnic minority who openly opposed Russia's occupation. 

^ It is not surprising that Russia has banned remembering the 1944 deportations in occupied Crimea. Starting in May 1944 and lasting a month around 238,500 Tatar men, women and children were deported to the Central Asian Soviet Republics. It is estimated that half died during the deportation. The Soviets then went through the Crimea and removed any trace of Tatar culture, language or heritage. The Tatars were not allowed to return to the Crimea until the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991 and the Ukraine became independent. Just a few months shy of the 70th anniversary (2014) of the 1944 deportations Russia invaded, occupied and then annexed the Crimea. Since the annexation many Tatars (and Ukrainians) have fled to the rest of the Ukraine. Those that remain in annexed Crimea have to deal with the closure of Tatar and Ukrainian language schools, organizations and businesses along with Tatar and Ukrainian media being banned. There is also open discrimination -  including attacks - on anyone who speaks Tatar or Ukrainian instead of Russian. The 1944 deportation may have been 72 years ago, but the Crimea Tatars are still being discriminated against in their own homeland. ^

 http://www.unian.info/politics/1347910-crimean-tatars-banned-from-honoring-1944-deportation-victims.html