The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its resolute protest over the so-called “decision” of the illegal judicial authority of the occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea to ban the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people by declaring it as an extremist organization.

The ban of the Mejlis - a key representative body of the Crimean Tatar people - which acts on the basis of the principle of non-violence, has become yet another flagrant violation by the occupying authorities of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

This unprecedented repressive decision represents a clear-cut evidence of systematic persecution of the Crimean Tatars due to their firm position regarding the illegal occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.

Ukraine strongly urges the occupant-state to reverse immediately this null and void decision and stop oppressing the Crimean Tatar community in the occupied Crimea.

This situation once again demonstrates the urgent need to step up the international community efforts to protect human rights in the occupied Crimea and to safeguard unfettered access of international human rights organizations to monitor the human rights situation on the ground.

To halt systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the occupied Crimea, as well as repressions and intimidation, is possible only by making the occupant-state stop its aggression against Ukraine and strictly comply with international law and its international legal obligations. In this regard Ukraine calls upon its partners, first of all the key guarantors of its security under the Budapest Memorandum, to intensify the efforts to establish an international mechanism for the de-occupation of Crimea.