The Crimean Tatar Resource Center submitted a report to the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples report for the study Laws, legislation, policies, constitutions, judicial decisions and other mechanisms through which states have taken measures to achieve the goals of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in accordance with Article 38 of the Declaration.
A draft of this study will be presented by the Expert Mechanism at its 17th annual session in July 2024, after which it will be finalized and submitted to the Human Rights Council at its 57th session in September 2024.
In particular, the CTRC provided information about the persecution by the Russian Federation of representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people in occupied Crimea and the ban in 2016 on the activities of the representative body of the Crimean Tatars – Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people.
“The Russian occupation power of Crimea does not recognize the Crimean Tatar people as an indigenous people in accordance with its procedures; moreover, in 2016, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people – the representative executive body of the indigenous people of Ukraine – as an extremist organization and banned its activities”,- claims the report.
In contrast, Ukraine is making significant efforts to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but there are still many problematic issues and a lot of work to achieve the final result.
“The adopted Law of Ukraine “On Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” does not fully implement the rights of indigenous peoples, in particular the right to self-determination. According to the existing legal system of Ukraine, this issue can only be resolved by amending the Constitution of Ukraine, but due to the martial law in the country, there are no legal mechanisms for making such a decision”,- the experts added.