The Crimean Tatars find a way to commemorate their ancestors’ deportation, in the face of riot police and an official ban.

Banned Remembrance

by Halya Coynash

The limited force of words, even those from Western leaders expressing solidarity with the Crimean Tatars, has become poignantly clear on this – 70th - anniversary of their forced deportation from their homeland. On 16 May, two days before the commemoration, Crimea’s self-proclaimed leader, Sergei Aksenov, issued a decree effectively banning remembrance ceremonies. Had it not been for Russia’s annexation of Crimea, representatives from the EU, United States, and elsewhere would have been among the many guests joining Crimean Tatars in remembering the victims of a terrible crime.

The Mejlis, the executive body of the Crimean community, decided on 17 May not to hold the traditional mass meeting in the center of Simferopol, which on the anniversary “was fenced off and guarded by ranks of Russian riot police and pro-Russia ‘self-defense’ units standing alongside armored personnel carriers,” according to Reuters.

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