Crimean News ¹ 14
Double Standards of Parliament
The issues of repatriates interest the Council of Europe.
The donation of religious books to Crimean Tatar library.
Mejlis news.
On July 7 a meeting was held between the Chairman of Mejlis of Crimean Tatar People and the Ambassador of Turkey Alpom Karaosmanoglu. The ambassador resented the fact that parliament of Ukraine approved the documents of protection of a terrorist A. Ocalan and suggested that this action may negatively effect the relations between Turkey and Ukraine. M.Dzhemilev stated that Turkey should not pay too much attention to the opinions of leftists because any complications in the relations of Ukraine with democratic countries will be favored by the procommunist forces in Ukraine.
Information service of Mejlis, newspaper "Voice of Crimea"¹ 29 (299) 16 July 1999, p. 1
Double Standards of Parliament
The speech of Mustafa Dzhemilev
On July 7, 1999
Dear deputies,
While approving any document concerning the case of Abdulla Ocalan, it is necessary to remember that he is a leader of a Marxist/Leninist Kurd Organization, which strives for its own political goals primarily by terrorist methods - methods that are condemned by a civilized society. The case of Ocalan consists of hundreds of pages. There is a long list of crimes committed by Ocalan and his partners, including a murder of over 5000 peaceful citizens (including children), bombing of hospitals, clinics, schools, hotels, and a large scale drug business. Therefore to vote for any document that supports Ocalan is to support terrorism and drug business. Furthermore, you will jeopardize the friendly relations with Turkey, which was one of first nations that recognized the independence of Ukraine and established diplomatic relations with us. At the moment it is one of our best friends within the Council of Europe. Before we can ask for clemency, we must abolish the death penalty in our own country. Otherwise we will be creating a double standard. This case will be considered in Turkish parliament, where there are about 150 deputies of Kurd origin, even a chairman of Turkish parliament, Hikmet Chetin, is an ethnic Kurd by origin.
By the way, there is not a single Crimean Tatar in Parliament of Crimea. And yet Crimean Tatars strive to obtain rights by peaceful and democratic methods.
Therefore, I hope that our parliament and particularly our Marxist/Leninist friends, for the most part, engage in domestic issues and do not make any clumsy attempts to teach democracy to countries whose democratic traditions are much older than our own.
Newspaper “Crimea”, ¹ 29 (526), 17 July 1999., p. 1.
Allocation of Prize Nansen
The Chairman of Mejlis of Crimean Tatar People M.Dzhemilev, after considering numerous projects, which could be funded using the money of UN Prize Nansen (awarded to him as a sum of 100,000 US dollars in October of last year in Geneva) has finally decided to finance the following projects:
The issues of repatriates interest the Council of Europe.
During the period of July 5 – 9 the "round table" discussion was held about the issues of integration of repatriates in the Council of Ministers with the participation of the Council of Europe. The members of the round table wanted to make sure that Ukraine was complying with the immigration standards of the European Convention for Protection of Ethnic Minorities. They were also interested in dealing with the issues of education, culture, language, and problems of employment of the repatriates. One of the tasks of the Council of Europe is to provide equal rights and opportunities for representatives of every nationality.
A representative of Mejlis of Crimean Tatar People noted that Ukraine does make an attempt to maintain the standards of proper treatment of the minorities by agreeing to cooperate with international organizations. However, the rights of former deportees in the autonomy are often violated.
Lentara Halilova, newspaper “Voice of Crimea”, ¹ 29 (299) 16 July 1999., p. 1
The donation of religious books to Crimean Tatar library.
One hundred books written in Arabic and English about history and religion were given to the Republican Crimean Tatar library by the Crimean charitable foundation "Birlik" and the Crimean foundation "Crimea - 2000". Among those books were the interpretations of Holy Koran and the interpretations of hadises of prophet Muhammed.
A very important section of the gas pipeline going through Dzhankoy, Feodosya and Kerch was completed. Pipes that were 530 mm in diameter were welded together.
Vyacheslav Darkin, “Crimean Newspaper”, ¹ 129 (15743) 17 July 1999 ., p. 8.
On July 1 the level of unemployment in Ukraine was officially announced to be 3,98%. The number of people with the "unemployed" status is 1.4 times greater than it was last year. 32,400 people are unemployed in Crimea. Women make up the majority of the unemployed. Almost half of the unemployed in Crimea are skilled individuals like metal and construction workers.
Kira Ivanova, newspaper "Crimea Time”, ¹ 131 (752), 17 July 1999 ., p. 6.