On Wednesday, December 15, in Lviv, in the Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes Territory of Terror, the Crimean Tatar Resource Center presented an exclusive documentary Give Me Back My Dad!
The event was attended by team members who worked on the creation of the film, the heroes of the documentary, activists, volunteers, public figures, journalists and others.
“For several years our team had a dream and set itself the task of making a film about children whose parents are in places of detention, arrested by the occupation regime. And children, whose parents have been forcibly disappeared or have gone missing and there is still no information about them”,- said Eskender Bariiev, Head of the Board of the CTRC.
Bariiev stressed that the Crimean Tatar Resource Center with this film wants to draw the attention of the Ukrainian and international community to the problem of political prisoners in Crimea, as well as their children, who suffer no less than their parents. That is why the film is available in seven languages: Ukrainian, Arabic, German, English, Turkish, Italian and Spanish.
“We want the documentary to be used at various international venues, for example, within the framework of side events or within the framework of events of international organizations. We also want to show this film in the regions of Ukraine so that more people learn about the real situation in the occupied Crimea”,- the expert explained.
The film's presentation was also attended by the film's heroes: Marko Shaimardanov and his mother Olha Shaimardanova. In 2014, the boy's father Tymur Shaimardanov was supposed to pick him up from school, but he never came. Human rights defenders and activists are convinced that Tymur was forcibly kidnapped because of his active pro-Ukrainian position in the occupied peninsula.
“Thanks to everyone involved. Thank you for not letting the problem be forgotten. It helps when you realize that people care. I believe that with time everything will be fine, the fate of all the missing and all political prisoners will be known. Thanks to such measures, we will be able to achieve a common goal”,- said Marko.
Olha Shaimardanova also thanked the Crimean Tatar Resource Center and everyone involved in the creation of the film.
“Thank you for not being silent, but promoting this information both in Ukraine and abroad. Many people think that living in Crimea is wonderful. Although people disappear there, people are tortured there, children are left without parents, people are afraid to say too much, even over the phone. Therefore, we need to show, speak, so that everyone knows the real situation on the peninsula”,- she explained.
Speaking about how to help political prisoners and their families, Eskender Bariiev recalled the campaign MP, Help Prisoners of the Kremlin! launched by the International Movement for the De-occupation of Crimea and Solidarity with the Crimean Tatar People #LIBERATECRIMEA. As part of this initiative, Ukrainian and European MPs can take patronage over Crimeans who have been arrested or persecuted by the Russian occupants.
“It is important that at least one MP takes under the patronage one political prisoner and begins to work systematically in this direction. We hope that in Lviv there will be local MPs who will take care of the families of political prisoners in order to help these children”,- he stressed.
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