(MENAFN- UkrinForm) Activists are gathering people's votes for a petition to the Bundestag to recognize the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 as genocide.
Signatures will be collected through October 22. The petition can be signed on the Bundestag website. Signatures can also be filed by mail, reports Ukrinform.
The petition was initiated by the Germany-based Crimean Cultural Center "KERMEN" (Krimer-Kulturzentrum "KERMEN").
According to the founder of the organization, Elvis Çolpuh, for many, Crimea is the sea, mountains, and resorts, but for the Crimean Tatar people, it is their only home.
"The Crimeans (Crimean Tatars) have no other homeland except Crimea," Çolpuh notes.
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On May 18, 1944, by order of Stalin, the indigenous people of Crimea, Crimeans (Crimean Tatars), were forcibly deported. Nearly 200,000 women, children and elderly people were removed in cattle rail cars to remote regions in Siberia and Central Asia for forced labor. Over 46% of Crimeans (Crimean Tatars) died in the first years of deportation from hunger, disease, hard labor, and inhumane living conditions.
"Genocide is a crime with no statute of limitations. The heirs of the criminal regime have not yet borne responsibility for what they have done. Therefore, it is critical to draw the attention of the international community to the genocides and repressions against the indigenous people of Crimea, which are still taking place today," Çolpuh emphasizes.
In general, the Russian state has been pursuing a purposeful policy of colonization of Crimea and extermination of the indigenous population of the peninsula for almost three centuries.
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The civilized world condemned the genocide, recognizing it as a crime against humanity.
Guided by the provisions of the UN Convention, the mass deportation of Crimeans (Crimean Tatars) was recognized as genocide by Ukraine (2015), Latvia, Lithuania (2019), Canada (2022), and Poland (2024).
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