Federal Government should help Refat Chubarov

On Monday, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) sent an appeal to the German federal government to protest against Russia's decision to issue an entrance ban to Crimea against one of the most important leaders of the Crimean Tatars, Refat Chubarov. "The travel ban against Chubarov is a measure against all Crimean Tatars, for he is the Chairman of the Mejlis, their self-representation. This should not be tolerated without protests," says the letter the human rights organization sent to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to other EU foreign ministers and the European Commission. "First Mustafa Dzhemilev, now Refat Chubarov: the two leading representatives of the Crimean Tatars are not allowed to visit their homeland – which was illegally annexed by Russia – for the next five years. The federal government and the other European governments must demand the Crimean administration and its Russian partners to take back the bans and should openly criticize the increasing repressions against the Crimean Tatars."

According to the STP, there are more and more repressive measures against the Crimean Tatars, such as torture, the murder of the Crimean Tatar Reshat Ametov, house searches against political activists, a warning against the chief editor of the Mejlis-newspaper, prohibition of traditional commemorations of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars under Stalin on May 18, banned celebrations of the day of the Crimean Tatar flag, repressions against visitors of mosques, against students and workers of Crimean decent. "The Crimean Tatars are arbitrarily marginalized in order to drive them from the peninsula."

Chubarov and other politicians of the Crimean Tatars had left Crimea on July 4 to attend a meeting of the Mejlis in Henichesk in the Kherson region. The meeting was held there to allow the only Crimean Tatar member of the Ukranian Parliament and long-standing President of the Mejlis, Mustafa Dzhemilev, to take part. When Chubarov tried to return to the Crimea on July 5, he was stopped at the border by a large contingent of the Russian OMON. The prosecutor read out the travel ban without any further statement.

Sarah Reinke - head of the Berlin office and STP's expert on Eastern Europe - is available for further questions: Tel. 030 428 048 91 or berlin@gfbv.de.