Crimean Tatars Demand Erecting Monuments to Victims of Deportation and Repressions

February 2003 marked the 85th anniversary of the death of Noman Chelebidzhikhan, head of the first national government of the Crimea, chairman of the First Kurultai elected in 1917, and mufti of the Crimea, Lithuania, and Belarus. Meetings organized in Simferopol and Sevastopol upon the initiative of the Islamic Party of Ukraine marked this event. Participants of the Simferopol meeting stressed that Noman Chelebidzhikhan was a true democrat and ruled out violent methods in his political fight. He viewed the October revolution of 1917 as a tragedy that brought war, famine, and misery. Noman Chelebidzhikhan was arrested by Bolsheviks and shot without trial in a Sevastopol prison.

The meeting’s resolution reads that the Communist party is to blame for killing millions of people. In their opinion, this deprives its assignees of the right to claim power in Ukraine. They believe that people and the authorities of independent Ukraine are to draw conclusions from the lessons of their history and not tolerate violating the law, especially if it is connected with national discrimination.

The meeting participants demanded that monuments be erected to the victims of deportation and political repressions of the period of Communist totalitarianism, to rename streets, squares, and towns named after the executors of the genocide policy, and to fight hostilities between nations, reports Mykyta KASYANENKO , Simferopol.