Press release, 18.05.2015

Moscow Government denied YABLOKO’s application for a rally and picketing in memory of the deported peoples. Despite the fact the activists are going to conduct a street action outside the Mayor’s Office on May19.

On May 18, the 71 anniversary of the Crimean Tatars deportation, YABLOKO adopted a statement which runs that “the prohibition of the events dedicated to the deportation anniversary once again proves that the rights of the deported peoples haven’t been restored yet”.

The action is dedicated to the anniversary of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars and other peoples who were forcefully resettled from their territories during Joseph Stalin’s rule. “The present authorities of Russia don’t like to remember this date and many other dates connected with the crimes of Stalinism”, claim the YABLOKO party.

Representatives of the deported peoples traditionally join the action. Last year over 250 people participated in the rally including the representatives of the deported peoples (representatives of the Moscow Crimean Tatar community were among them).

At the order of Joseph Stalin the forces of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs evicted more over 190 thousand people, mostly women, elderly people, children, invalids who had come back from the war, for treason, loaded them into cattle-boxes and sent to the republics of Central Asia. Within a year and a half since the deportation began about 20 percent of the people died. Partial rehabilitation during Khrushchev’s rule didn’t give the right to return to the homeland. And now, after 70 years, the rights of the Crimean Tatars haven’t been fully restored despite the promises on behalf the authorities.

The action will take place outside the Mayor’s Office, Tverskaya Street 13. The action will start at 5 p.m.