Crimean Tatars: Council of Europe’s Report Criticized by Head of Mejlis
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The head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, Mr Refat Chubarov, has criticized the Council of Europe’s report on human rights in Crimea published last 14 April 2016. He claims that the report focuses on harassment and persecution of Crimean Tatars at an individual level, thereby ignoring the higher-level clampdown by the Russian authorities on the Crimean Tatar people as a whole. The Council of Europe’s observers had noted that it was, too early to speak about a deliberate policy of repression against the Crimean Tatars as an ethnic group.
Below is an article published by Ukraine and Crimea Today:
The head of the Crimean Tatar people Majlis Refat Chubarov has criticized the Council of Europe’s report on human rights in Crimea.
He said this during the Strasbourg Roundtable of the session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
“The report suggests that harassment and persecution are experienced by individual activists which are far apart on the Russian regime, but not by the Crimean Tatars as an ethnic group in the temporary occupied Crimea. We strongly disagree with this conclusion,” he said.
Chubarov noted that “police had searched no any other locations, but the representatives of the Crimean Tatar people ones” in Crimea and the Russian authorities’ clampdown the Majlis activities was the best proof that the occupation authorities followed the policy of extermination of the Crimean Tatar people.
On April 14 the Council of Europe issued a report on the results of the Mission’s visit to Crimea. In particular, it focused attention on the situation of the Crimean Tatar community. The Council of Europe observers noted that it was too early to speak about a deliberate policy of repression against the Crimean Tatars as an ethnic group.
