On April 20, the Kremlin’s propaganda, from Putin personally to local puppets, began to talk about the alleged “friendship of peoples” on the occupied peninsula, “suddenly switching” from “celebrating” its annexation 240 years ago and the beginning of the genocide of the Crimean Tatars, to “rehabilitating the repressed peoples” , however, a little “forgetting” to clarify – who actually destroyed them.
Against this background, the aggressor’s representative in the UN tried to talk at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues about the alleged “cunning of Ukraine”, which adopted a law on the rights of indigenous peoples in 2021 and allegedly “does not recognize this status for a number of peoples”.
However, the invaders “forgot” to tell the UN that, unlike Ukraine, they deny indigenous peoples’ rights to living in Crimea, and, in addition, they are engaged in discrimination, Russification and persecution.
But in this “oversight” the situation was corrected by representatives of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center; in his next speech at the UN Forum, Eskender Bariev expressed gratitude to the member countries for supporting Ukraine against the Russia’s war crimes, for the sanctions, thanks to which there are fewer Russia’s missiles to attack Ukraine, and also drew the attention of the Forum participants to the report of Commissioner of the Council of Europe Dunya Mijatovic on the situation with indigenous Crimean Tatar people.
The human rights activist reminded the international community that the life of the indigenous people is under threat due to the forced “mobilization” into the aggressor’s army and he once again reminded that the indigenous people can only be represented by their representatives and by the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, which Russia illegally banned in 2016, and initiated “criminal cases” against its leaders.
