Czech Senate votes to recognize deportation of Crimean Tatars as genocide

Ukrainian MP Mykola Kniazhytskyi reported this, saying that all senators voted in favor. 

In 1944 Crimean Tatars were deported from the Crimean Peninsula as a result of state-organized and forcible action, ordered by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Deportation began on 18 May 1944 in all Crimean inhabited localities. More than 230,000 people were deported, mostly to Uzbekistan. This includes the entire ethnic Crimean Tatar population, at the time numbering about a fifth of the total population of the Crimean Peninsula, as well as smaller numbers of ethnic Greeks and Bulgarians. The lack of accommodation facilities and food, failure to adapt to new climatic conditions and the rapid spread of diseases had a heavy demographic impact during the first years of Crimean Tatars' exile. According to 1960s surveys conducted by Crimean Tatar activists, 109,956 (46.2%) Crimean Tatars of the 238,500 deportees died between July 1, 1944 and January 1, 1947 because of starvation and disease. From May to November 1944 10,105 Crimean Tatars died of starvation in Uzbekistan (9% of those deported to the Uzbek SSR). Nearly 30,000 (20%) died in exile during the first year and a half according to the Soviet secret police data. As Soviet dissident information attests, many Crimean Tatars were forced to work in large-scale projects implemented by the Soviet GULAG system.

• On November 21, it was reported that more than 60 Crimean political prisoners need urgent medical care.