WHEN:

Thursday, 24 March 2016, 18:15

WHERE:

Room 1.67, Franklin Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, Waterloo Campus King’s College London, SE1 9NH

Admission:

Free but registration is required. Please click here for free registration and tickets.

Crimean Tatars hold an action on Independence Square in Kyiv to commemorate victims of the deportation of 1944.

Public Lecture & Documentary Screening: “Banished and Persecuted in their Own Land: How Crimean Tatars Stand Up to Repression in Russia-Occupied Crimea”, Mr. Refat Chubarov, 24 March 2016, King’s College London

Ukrainian Institute in London is pleased to announce public lecture entitled “Banished and Persecuted in their Own Land: How Crimean Tatars Stand Up to Repression in Russia-Occupied Crimea” in which Mr.Refat Chubarov, The People’s Deputy of Ukraine and Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people will give a talk. This event is jointly organised by the Centre for Policy and Research on Turkey (Research Turkey) and the Ukrainian Institute in London.

The public lecture will follow the screening of the documentary directed and produced by Christina Paschyn entitled “A Struggle for Home: The Crimean Tatars”.

P.S: Centre for Policy and Research Turkey (Research Turkey) hereby expresses its special thanks to the director and producer, Christina Paschyn of the documentary “A Struggle for Home: The Crimean Tatars” for providing the copy and permission for screening of it publicly.

This event will take place on Thursday, 24 March 2016 between6:15p.m. and 8:30p.m. at Room 1.67, Franklin Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, Waterloo Campus King’s College London, SE1 9NH. Dr. Simon Waldman of Middle East & Mediterranean Studies, King’s College London will kindly chair the event.

Event Programme

6:15p.m. – 6:55p.m.  Documentary Screening (see trailer here)
“A Struggle for Home: The Crimean Tatars” by Christina Paschyn

7:00p.m. – 8:30p.m. Public Lecture: “Banished and Persecuted in their Own Land: How Crimean Tatars Stand Up to Repression in Russia-Occupied Crimea”
Speaker: Mr. Refat Chubarov, The People’s Deputy of Ukraine
Chair: Dr. Simon Waldman, King’s College London

You may find the short biographies of the speaker and the chair as well as the talk’s abstract below.

Public lecture will be in Russian language with consecutive interpretation into English provided. The documentary will be screened in English language with English subtitles.

Both events are free and open to public but require pre-registration. A ticket does not guarantee a seat.

Short Biographies of the Speaker, the Chair and Abstract of the Talk

Speaker: Mr. Refat Chubarov, The People’s Deputy of Ukraine and Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people

Refat Chubarov was born on in 1957 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. In 1983 he graduated from the Moscow State Historic-Archive Institute. After graduation he worked at the Central State Archives of the October Revolution and the Socialist Construction in Riga (Latvia). Later Mr. Chubarov worked as Director of the State Archive of the Latvian SSR between 1984 and 1988. Between 1989 and 1991, Chubarov served as a regional representative at the Riga city council (Popular Front of Latvia faction). Mr. Chubarov has also been a member of the State Commission of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the problems of the Crimean Tatar people from 1990 to 1991. Chubarov was the First Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people from July 1991 to October 2013. Since October 2013, Chubarov holds the post of Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people. Refat Chubarov also serves as the President of the World Congress of Crimean Tatars (was firstly elected in 2009 and re-elected to this post in 2015). In the period from 1998 to 2002; from 2002 to 2006 and from 2006 to 2007 served as the people’s deputy of Ukraine; and since May 2015; Refat Chubarov is the People’s Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Chair: Dr. Simon Waldman, Middle East & Mediterranean Studies, King’s College London

Dr. Simon Waldman is a lecturer in Middle East Studies at King’s College London. His research interests include the Arab-Israeli Conflict, the Middle East Peace Process, international diplomacy, state building in the Middle East as well as Turkish history and politics. His first book “Anglo-American Diplomacy and the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1948-1951″ will shortly be published by Palgrave Macmillan, and he is currently working on a co-authored book on contemporary Turkish politics that will be published by Hurst.

Abstract of the Talk

Since the occupation and annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in early 2014, the situation with human rights and freedoms on the peninsula has rapidly deteriorated. Crimean Tatars, the indigenous population of Crimea, were the first to come under attack. Human rights abuses against Crimean Tatars were condemned by OSCE and the Council of Europe. Most recently, a campaign to ban the Mejlis, the executive body of the Crimea Tatar community, has intensified. The overwhelming majority of Crimean Tatars have refused to recognize Russia’s annexation of the region, which followed a military occupation and a staged referendum. Recent persecutions brought back painful memories Crimean Tatars hold of 1944 when theit entire community got deported to Central Asia overnight in a horrific act of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Stalin’s regime.