On May 23, the ZMINA Human Rights Center and the Mission of Ukraine to the EU in cooperation with Anna Fotyga, Member of the European Parliament and advocacy mentor of political prisoner Server Mustafayev, are planning to hold a public conference “Crimean Tatars after February 2022”.

The event will be dedicated to the tragic date of May 18 – the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Crimean Tatar Genocide and the Day of Struggle for the Rights of the Crimean Tatar People. On this day in 1944, the Soviet authorities began deporting Crimean Tatars from their homeland. In just two days, more than 183,000 Crimean Tatars were deported from Crimea, resulting in thousands of deaths from starvation and disease.

Today, the aggressor state continues to violate the rights of Crimean Tatars on the peninsula. With the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, new challenges have emerged. They will be discussed during the conference.

It will be opened by moderator Anna Fotyga, Member of the European Parliament. Welcoming remarks will be delivered by:

• Tamila Tasheva, Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;
• Emine Dzhaparova, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine;
• Refat Chubarov, Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People;
• Eamon Gilmore, EU Special Representative for Human Rights.

The event will be followed by a panel discussion on the history of repressions against Crimean Tatars by the Russian authorities, the consequences of the 2014 occupation and the further “development of events” from 2022 for the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, the fate of political prisoners, as well as recommendations to the Ukrainian and international authorities on the preservation and development of the Crimean Tatar people and their culture.

The moderator of the second panel is Tetyana Pechonchyk, Head of the Board of the ZMINA Human Rights Center.

Speakers:

• Gulnara Abdulayeva, Crimean Tatar, historian and journalist;
• Aziz Umerov, Crimean Tatar, brother of illegally imprisoned Lenia Umerova;
• Professor Andrew Wilson, University College London, Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations;
• Iryna Sedova, expert of the Crimean Human Rights Group.

The event will take place in the European Parliament, beginning at 16:00 Kyiv time.

Follow the event online: https://www.youtube.com/live/n1io8rTfznI?feature=share