- Speakers were:
Viktor Yelensky, Chairman of the State Service of Ukraine on Ethno-politics and Freedom of Conscience.
Akhtem Chiygoz, Ukrainian Crimean Tatar politician, Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People.- Eskender Bariiev, Chairman of the Board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre (CTRC).
Yelizaveta Litvinchuk, member of the Public Organisation ‘Union of Karaites of Ukraine’.
Vyacheslav Lombroso, Deputy Chairman of the International Public Organisation ‘Fund for Research and Support of Indigenous Peoples of Crimea’, representative of the Crimean Tatar indigenous people of Ukraine (online).
Sires Bolyaen (Alexander Bolkin), an elder of the Erzya people – inyazor of the Erzya people, chairman of the Erzya society in Ukraine ‘Ěrzäń val’ (‘Erzya word’).
Denis Kovalev (Moksha name: Chóvganon Dónisi), PhD, Chairman of the Moksha National Committee, Member of the Presidium of the League of Free Nations, Director of the Ukrainian Anatoliy Ryabov Centre for Finno-Ugric Studies (online).
Yuriy Radchenko, Head of the Department of Crimean Tatar and Eastern Philology of the Vladimir Vernadsky Tauride National University, Director of the Centre for the Study of Interethnic Relations in Eastern Europe.
During the event, attendees discussed how Russian aggression has affected the lives and cultures of indigenous peoples, considered the challenges faced by indigenous peoples in their struggle to preserve their identity, and discussed the importance of international support for the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights.
Eskender Bariiev spoke about the difficult path to the recognition of Crimean Tatars as an indigenous people of Ukraine.
‘Crimean Tatars were officially recognised as the indigenous people of Ukraine only in 2014 after the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people as a representative body appealed to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, appealed to the entire Ukrainian people, supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the sovereignty of Ukraine and in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Crimean Tatars were defined officially as the indigenous people of Ukraine and representative bodies official in Ukraine,’ he said.
But only in 2021 the law ‘On Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine’ was adopted. And just an indicator of the effectiveness of this law was Putin’s hysterical reaction.
‘As part of the work of the SSUEPFC, there is also an expert council on the implementation of the Law ‘On Indigenous Peoples’. There is a public council, where representatives of indigenous peoples participate, with which we have worked together to develop procedures, i.e. by-laws to make this law work, but this work has not yet been finalised. According to our calculations, we need 17 by-laws for the law to be effective. Unfortunately, now only 2 have been approved: on consultations with representative bodies and on fixing the legal status of the representative body of the indigenous people’, – said the expert.
Photo: UCMC