‘Russia is adopting repressive Soviet-era policies against Crimean Tatars’
KYIV, Ukraine (AA) – Russia is subjecting Crimean Tartars to the same repressive policies of the Soviet era, the leader of the Crimean Tatars said Thursday.
Mustafa Abdulcemil Kirimoglu, who is also a deputy in Ukraine’s parliament, was speaking to Anadolu Agency on the 78th anniversary of the Crimean Tatars’ deportation from their historical homeland to Siberia by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1944.
What happened in 1944 was the Crimean Tatar genocide, Kirimoglu said, noting that up to 46% of the deported population lost their lives within the first two years.
Kirimoglu said the Soviet administration made efforts to erase any traces of the Tatars’ legacy in Crimea by banning their language and even demolishing cemeteries
Referring to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Kirimoglu emphasized that Russia conducted a systematic policy of oppression against Crimean Tatars.
Consequently, over 30,000 of them fled from the peninsula, while some of those who stayed were killed or went missing, he said.
Russian forces entered the Crimean Peninsula in February 2014, with Russian President Vladimir Putin formally dividing the region into two separate federal subjects of the Russian Federation the following month.
Due to pressure from the Russian administration, thousands of Crimean Tatars had to leave the peninsula.
Arrests of Crimean Tatars at their homes and mosques continue on charges of them being members of a “terrorist organization.”
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