Seventy years after their deportation, Crimean Tatars defy meeting ban to commemorate anniversary

[pampango]

Crimean Tatar boys light candles during a memorial ceremony marking the 70th anniversary
of the deportation of Tatars from Crimea, near a Mosque in Simferopol on May 17, 2014. Leaders
of Crimea's Tatar community on May 17 called off a ceremony to commemorate 70 years since
their deportation by Stalin, after an official ban and fears of unrest.

The Crimean capital of Simferopol looked like a city prepared for mass riots on May 18. The central street was barricaded by hundreds of Russian riot police. Armoured personnel carriers were parked down side streets, and a row of prison vans greeted anyone arriving at the railway station.

The new Crimean authorities were taking no chances on an annual Crimean Tatar commemorative meeting going ahead on central Lenin square. But thousands of Crimean Tatars defied the police and a ban imposed on public meetings to gather on the city’s outskirts in a show of solidarity and defiance.

The Kremlin-backed Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov announced on May 16 a ban on all public meetings in Crimea until June 6, citing troubles and provocations in southeast Ukraine. The ban came just one day after the Mejlis had agreed with authorities that the annual May 18 meeting would go ahead, without political speeches or Ukrainian flags. The next day, riot police began mass training exercises in the center of Simferopol.


Officers the Russian riot police force OMON take part a training session
in the Crimean capital Simferopol, on May 17 2014, ahead of the 70th anniversary
of the 1944 Crimean Tatars deportation by the Soviet Union, a major day of
mourning that this year will be marked amid tensions over Moscow's annexation of the peninsula.

The Akhmechet meeting was a peaceful and somber occasion, and afterwards the crowds dispersed quietly. But the helicopters and massed troops in town left many with no doubt of their new status in Russian Crimea, as a people with no rights.

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/seventy-years-after-their-deportation-crimean-tatars-defy-meeting-ban-to-commemorate-anniversary-348320.html

[Duckhunter935]

1. Looks like after 70 years

they will be humiliated again. The leader has already been placed in exile and not allowed to return home.