80 years ago, on May 18, 1944, in dark predawn hours, the National Tragedy of Crimea had begun. The uniformed soldiers of Soviet KGB troops knocked at the doors of Crimean Tatars houses...

In the 1960s, the Crimean Tatars conducted a census of their people and found that more than half of the deported died in the process of deportation.

Samira Aliyeva, a fourth-grade student in Russian-occupied Crimea, should have been praised for her homework assignment about her great-grandfather, a WWII veteran and victim of Stalin’s 1944 Deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar people.

On May 18, 1944, at dawn dusk, the communist authorities of the USSR committed another barbaric crime against humanity. That morning, total genocide against the indigenous population of Crimea began.

This is no formal remembrance of a tragedy somewhere back in the distant past. 75 years after Stalin’s monstrous act of genocide, many Crimean Tatars are once again in forced exile, others imprisoned in occupied Crimea or Russia for their civic activism or simply for their faith

‘Vandals’ in Russian-occupied Crimea have totally destroyed a monument to Crimean Tatars killed in battle during World War II

No honest man can be reconciled with what is happening in the territories occupied by Russia. Whatever ethnicity we are and to what religion we belong to, but today we are Crimean Tatars by blood, which flows from the veins.

Repressive measures under Russian occupation on the anniversary of the Deportation of the Crimean Tatar people began early this year with the detention on the evening of 17 May of around 20 young people taking part in the traditional youth action ‘Light a flame in your heart’

The cynical torment of 57-year-old Nedim Khalilov is almost certainly retaliation for his attempt to bring legal proceedings against Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea.

The typically heavy-handed measures on August 20 still failed to prevent a hard-hitting resolution warning of grave infringements of Crimean Tatar rights

Crimean Tatars have categorically rejected a proposal to establish a new ‘cheerful’ festival, ‘Avdet Kunyu’ or Day of the Return to Crimea and see it as an idea coming from "those who are depriving us of our Liberty, our Homeland and national identity"

Russia has miscalculated with its persecution of Crimean Tatars for their national flag, their faith and / or their opposition to Russian occupation of their homeland

A bill now before Ukraine’s parliament can, according to Crimean Tatar leader Refat Chubarov, finally end any dispute as to whom Crimea rightly belongs to.

Russian police and FSB marked the 73rd anniversary of the Deportation of the Crimean Tatar People with detentions and harassment of people, many elderly, gathered in prayer

The words above were spoken by a great Ukrainian Petro Grigorenko when he addressed Crimean Tatars exiled in Moscow in 1968, almost 25 years after the Deportation. Nearly 50 years later, Crimean Tatars are once again exiled or persecuted, and Grigorenko’s advice on demanding their rights and accepting no less, just as poignantly relevant.

Ukraine is taking Russia to the European Court of Human Rights over its ban of the internationally recognized Mejlis or Crimean Tatar self-governing body. The ban has rightly been condemned as “a hostile act against the entire Crimean Tatar people” and as a new low for Russia

Nedim Khalilov began his hunger strike on Nov 24, in protest at being forcibly ’deported’ from his homeland 9 months after the Crimean Tatar lodged a law suit against Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading and occupying Crimea.

Russia’s Supreme Court has upheld the 5-year ban imposed shortly after Russia invaded Crimea preventing Mustafa Dzhemiliev from entering his homeland

Nedim Khalilov, a Crimean Tatar activist who in February 2016 filed a civil suit asking for the actions of the occupation regime and Russian President Vladimir Putin to be declared illegal, has been ‘deported’ from his homeland and is being forcibly sent to Uzbekistan

Four young Crimean Tatars from Sudak have each been fined 20 thousand roubles in Russian-occupied Crimea over a peaceful act of remembrance for the victims of the 1944 Deportation of the Crimean Tatar People