Crimean court bans 'extremist' Tatar governing body

Agence France-Presse in Simferopol
Tuesday 26 April 2016 16.59 BST

The top court in Crimea has banned the ruling body of the Crimean Tatar community, the Mejlis, branding it an extremist organisation in the latest move against the peninsula’s ethnic minority.

The supreme court of Crimea, annexed by Russia from Ukraine last year, ruled in favour of a lawsuit lodged by the top prosecutor of the Black Sea peninsula, who had accused the Mejlis of illegal actions and “acts of sabotage” against the territory’s new Russian authorities.

Prosecutor Natalia Poklonskaya ordered the Mejlis to cease its activities earlier this month, accusing the respected body which has been working in Crimea for 25 years of “extremism”.

The lawyer for the Mejlis, Dzhemil Temishev, said the organisation would appeal against the decision. “The prosecutor did not prove that the Mejlis’ activities are extremist, everything we heard in court is her personal assessment,” Temishev said.

The Crimean Tatars make up about 13% of Crimea’s population. They are a Muslim people native to the peninsula who were deported under Josef Stalin’s reign, returning only at the collapse of the Soviet Union when the territory was granted autonomy status within a newly independent Ukraine.

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