Crimean Tatar leader calls for human rights support

By Betul Yuruk

GENEVA

The leader of Crimea’s Tatars on Friday criticized Muslim nations for failing to support the peninsula’s Muslims against human rights abuses.

“Muslim countries do not support us as much as the Western countries do,” Mustafa Abduldzhemil Dzhemilev Kirimoglu told Anadolu Agency following a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. “What kind of an Islamic solidarity is that?”

Kirimoglu is the former leader of the Crimean Tatars’ representative body, or Mejlis, and a member of the Ukrainian parliament.

According to human rights groups, Tatars have suffered discrimination since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014.

Kirimoglu said around 100,000 people had been displaced since then and accused Russia of “trying to change the demographic structure in Crimea.”