Human Rights Ombudsperson condemns Russian ban on Mustafa Dzhemilev

Valeria Lutkovska states that the ‘actions of the Russian Federation authorities in the Crimea are in breach of a number of fundamental human rights and rights of indigenous peoples, enshrined in international law, including the UN Declaration of Human Rights”.

Her site informs that she has sent letters to the relevant Russian bodies regarding the 5-year ban imposed on Crimean leader Mustafa Dzhemilev from entering the Russian Federation – and the Crimea which Russia has annexed.

She points out that Jemiliev was not handed an official document confirming the ban making it possible for him to lodge an appeal.  She asks for information regarding the application for this ban, the procedure for it as well as the procedure for appealing against it.

At the beginning of May Lutkovska wrote to the Russian Human Rights Ombudsperson Ella Pamfilova regarding the ban and the situation for the Crimean Tatar people. She wrote then that the Russian authorities’ treatment of the Crimean Tatar people “is nothing but ethnic discrimination against an ethnic group of more than 300 thousand people living in the Crimea.

There are no grounds, unfortunately, for believing that the first appeal was in any way acted upon.  Pressure has been only stepped up against Mustafa Jemiliev and his family  (See: Soviet tactics in ongoing attacks on Mustafa Jemiliev). 

They are also increasingly seen against Crimean Tatars in general, and their representative body, the Mejlis (see: Russian Clamp on Crimean Tatar Remembrance