Crimean Tatars, the native people of Crimea, will have candidates listed with four or five parties participating in the Ukrainian parliamentary elections scheduled for July 21, according to Refat Chubarov, head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People.
“I suggest we wait for the announcement of the lists officially. I can only says that our representatives are not on the lists of Opposition Platform (For Life) party, and in the Batkivshchyna Party there are no Crimean Tatars, but there are representatives of Crimea – it suits us,” Chubarov told the Hromadske news website.
Chubarov himself will run for parliament with the Strength and Honor party headed by Ihor Smeshko, former Security Service of Ukraine Chief. Chubarov has been a member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc (BPP) in the current convocation of parliament.
According to the latest polls from Ratings Group Ukraine, the Strength and Honor party is expected to receive 4.3 percent of the vote, not overcoming the 5-percent threshold to enter the next parliament.
Mustafa Dzhemilev, another influential Crimean Tatar leader, has also been a member of Petro Poroshenko Bloc. But Dzhemilev, former head of the Mejlis and Commissioner for the Affairs of Crimean Tatars under former President Poroshenko, has not yet announced whether he will run for the new parliament.
Both Chubarov and Dzhemilev were seen attending the European Solidarity party convention, a new party headed by Petro Poroshenko, on May 31.
The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People is the single highest executive-representative body of the Crimean Tatars. Their native Crimea was illegally annexed from Ukraine by Russia back in March 2014 and has been under military occupation since.
Exiled Tatar leadership in Ukraine have been playing an active role in defending the rights and interests of those left behind on the Crimean peninsula. Many Crimean Tatars moved to Ukrainian controlled territories after Russian troops moved in, fleeing widespread persecution by the occupying Kremlin authorities.
U.K. lawmakers, during the proceedings of a recent Westminster debate, discussed a 2018 report which found 367 separate, documented instances in which people in occupied Crimea had been denied the right to a fair trial. Many have been transferred to prisons in Russia where some have faced torture and been denied medical treatment.
