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MOSCOW — The Supreme Court in Crimea on
Tuesday banned the legislature of the Crimean Tatar minority, a body that the
local authorities have harassed repeatedly for opposing the 2014 Russian
annexation of the peninsula.
Following a similar action by the
Russian Justice Ministry last week, the presiding judge declared the
legislature, known as the Mejlis, an “extremist” organization and outlawed its
activities on Russian territory.
Natalya V. Poklonskaya, the Crimean
prosecutor appointed by Russia, argued before the court that the
Mejlis is supported by international terrorist organizations and aims to
destroy Russia’s territorial integrity.
“Today, the honorable court, we build a
world in which every Crimean will be safe and joyful, where roses will blossom
and grapes will grow,” Ms. Poklonskaya was quoted as saying by Novaya Gazeta, a
Russian newspaper. “The Mejlis opposes this as much as it can, so why do we
need it?”
Nariman Dzhelalov, the deputy head of
the Mejlis, said the formal ban would not change much, as the Russian
government has already done everything to obstruct the operations of the body.
“We will
continue our work beyond the Russian borders,” Mr. Dzhelalov said. “We will
appeal this decision with the European Court of Human Rights and I will stay in
Crimea to work here as a civic activist.”
The Mejlis was founded in 1991 to
represent a Turkic Muslim minority with deep roots in Crimea, whose members began to return to
their homeland after a brutal deportation in 1944. Tens of thousands are
believed to have died in Siberian prisons and Central Asia, making the
survivors deeply distrustful of Moscow. About 10 percent of the peninsula’s 2.3
million people are Crimean Tatar, according to the most recent census.
When Russia was moving toward annexing the
peninsula, Tatar activists provided the only opposition. After annexation,
Crimean Tatars were systematically harassed, and many activists were arrested
or disappeared, Mr. Dzhelalov said.
On Friday, the United States State
Department called on Russia to reverse the decision to suspend the Mejlis.
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