On October 8, 2020, opening the Exhibition “Hostages of the Occupation” in the Odessa RegionalScientific Library, Chairman of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center (CTRC) Eskender Bariyev stronglycondemned the “double standards” policy in the practice of some English and French editions.
In particular, Bariev stated that “Le Figaro” and “The Daily Telegraph” are going to sendcorrespondents to Crimea in October 2020 to cover large-scale “excavations” and “reburial” ofparticipants in the Crimean War in the “historical and archaeological” project “Crimea-Sevastopol2020”, in particular at the sites of the Battle of Alma, Battle of Inkerman and other parts of thepeninsula. The head of the CTRC stressed that such propaganda activities would be carried out by the“Russian-French Foundation for Historical Initiatives”, headed by the tendentious Pierre Malinovsky.
Eskender Bariyev informed the participants of the event on the official appeal of the CTRC to theeditorial offices of “Le Figaro” and “The Daily Telegraph”, regarding the inadmissibility of informationalsupport by these publications of the occupiers’ tendentious measures, aimed solely at attempts torecognize the Crimea annexation infringement. It was emphasized that the events of the Crimean War,now used by Russian propaganda, were the classic manifestation of colonialism and chauvinism ofthose imperial states and at the same time those Crimean War events gave rise to the genocide by
Russia of the indigenous Crimean Tatar People, which became the minority in own Homeland.
CTRC considered the announced visit of “Le Figaro” and “The Daily Telegraph” journalists to theoccupied Crimea also as the project “Crimea-Sevastopol 2020” as a clear manifestations of neo-colonialism, chauvinism and racial discrimination against Crimean Tatars.
Also Oleksii Plotnikov, the expert of the Association spoke at the opening of the exhibition “Hostagesof the Occupation”.
