Crimean Tatar

And not just in English: the encyclopedia currently exists in 278 languages, from Kalmyk to Crimean Tatar, Sanskrit to Inuktitut.

The Saturday interview: Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales 2011

The official explanation given for this mass uprooting of women, children, elderly, Red Army veterans and even members of the Communist Party was the false claim that the Crimean Tatar nationality had collectively betrayed the Soviet Union and collaborated with the Nazi occupiers.

Ukraine: 65th Anniversary of the Crimean Tatar Deportations 2009

On 18 May 1944, the Soviet NKVD began the systematic round up and deportation of nearly the entire Crimean Tatar population from their ancestral homeland to Uzbekistan and the Urals.

Ukraine: 65th Anniversary of the Crimean Tatar Deportations 2009

Over dinner in Simferopol with my adopted Crimean Tatar family last week, Ayder, a veteran of the Crimean Tatar human rights war against the USSR, used the term “genocide” to describe the present Ukrainian non-policy towards Crimean Tatars.

Ukraine: 65th Anniversary of the Crimean Tatar Deportations 2009

Reading about the Crimean Tatar non-violent resistance of the 20th century, their fierce support of the Orange revolution in 2004, and their annual celebration of Taras Shevchenko's birthday, he asked me for a recording of a Crimean Tatar violinist from whom he could learn some traditional melodies.

Ukraine: 65th Anniversary of the Crimean Tatar Deportations 2009

On the same day the NKVD also reported mobilizing 11,000 Crimean Tatar men for forced labor, bringing the total number of Crimean Tatars removed from Crimea to 191,014 (Ibid.).

Ukraine: 65th Anniversary of the Crimean Tatar Deportations 2009

A propos to the Crimean Tatar situation, the Ukrainian government should finally approve a law to grant the indigenous people of the Crimean peninsula rights and protections as a threatened, indigenous people of their ancestral homeland: land rights, education in the native language, an end to religious discrimination, and ultimately, a right to self-determination within the territory of Ukraine.

Ukraine: 65th Anniversary of the Crimean Tatar Deportations 2009

Maria Sonevytsky of My Simferopol Home posted photos from the memorial event that took place in Simferopol on May 18 - and described the current plight and the attitudes of the Crimean Tatar who have returned to live in Ukraine:

Ukraine: 65th Anniversary of the Crimean Tatar Deportations 2009

Early in the morning armed troops of the NKVD started knocking on the doors of Crimean Tatar houses and informing the inhabitants that they were to be deported.

Ukraine: 65th Anniversary of the Crimean Tatar Deportations 2009

The arrest and imprisonment of those who fight against national oppression in the USSR, like Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev and the Jewish rights activist Anatoly Shcharansky.

Human Rights for Everybody Ashton, Dore 1978