Human rights protection in occupied Crimea is the paramount challenge for international organisations, says Lithuanian Foreign Vice-Minister
During the meeting with Member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Jemilev on 17 May in Kyiv, the Lithuanian Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Vytautas Leškevičius pointed out that the human rights situation in the territory of Ukraine that was occupied by Russia, first of all, the right constraints imposed on the Crimean Tatar people had to be a paramount item on the agenda for international organizations.
M.Jemilev, who is banned by Russia from returning to the territory of Crimea, informed the Lithuanian Foreign Vice-Minister about the problems of the Crimean Tatar people following Russia’s occupation of Crimea. According to him, the kidnapping of Crimean Tatars, the prohibition of the mother tongue, constraints on the right to peaceful assembly, discrimination and ethnically-motivated murder have become a daily routine in occupied Crimea.
On 18 May, the Crimean Tatars are marking 70 years since their forcible deportation to Central Asia and Siberia; however, Russia has banned the commemoration of this date in occupied Crimea. In 1944, Josef Stalin ordered the deportation of Crimean Tatars, mainly women and children.
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