On Sunday, 8 September, the Chairman of the Board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre, member of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Eskender Bariiev took part in the online presentation of the Special Report on the observance of the rights of national minorities (communities) and indigenous peoples in the conditions of armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine for the period: 24 February 2022 – 31 December 2023.
The report was prepared on the basis of monitoring visits and a joint study by the Office of the Ombudsman and the Council of Europe.
In his speech, Eskender Bariiev thanked the organisers of the event and noted that it is very important to conduct such studies and implement the recommendations of the European Commission.
‘When researching violations of the rights of national minorities and indigenous peoples, special attention should be paid to violations of their collective rights and threats to the preservation of their identity. In addition, I noted that there is a difference in the collective rights of indigenous peoples and national minorities (communities),’ – the expert said.
The Chairman of the Board of the CTRC stressed that over the last 3 years Ukraine has made achievements in this direction: the Law ‘On Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine’ was adopted, the Law ‘On National Minorities (Communities of Ukraine)’ was adopted, the Strategy for the development of the Crimean Tatar language was adopted, the rights of indigenous peoples and national minorities were taken into account in the Law on Education, etc. However, for the implementation of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine’ it is still necessary to adopt 15 by-laws and make amendments and additions to 10 laws of Ukraine.
‘So far, Ukraine has no Action Plan for the realisation of the rights of indigenous peoples, Ukraine has no initiative in developing the UN Humanitarian Response Plan for Crimea. It is not clear for what reasons, but the CMU does not implement the legislation of Ukraine in the issue of fixing the legal status of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people as a representative body of the indigenous people, when all legal procedures have been completed and the agreed draft order has been in the CMU since 7 October 2023,’ – he added.
Eskender Bariiev expressed his hopes that these comments would be taken into account in the near future.