The Parties shall refrain from measures which alter the proportions of the population in areas inhabited by persons belonging to national minorities and are aimed at restricting the rights and freedoms flowing from the principles enshrined in the present framework Convention.

Demographic Balance and Migration Processes in Crimea

302.	In 1783, at the time of the annexation of the peninsula by Russia (which followed the defeat of the Crimean Tatar Khanate of 1774), Crimean Tatars represented 83 percent of the total population of Crimea, with Russians and Ukrainians comprising respectively 5.7 percent and 2.9 percent of the population. Once controlled by the Russians, Crimean Tatars were systematically deprived of power and resources - namely land -, which led to mass emigration. Emigration and deportations of the Crimean Tatar population that lasted until the 1860s succeeded in changing dramatically the demographics of the peninsula in the favor of the colonizing Russians. By 1937, the Russian population represented 47.7 percent, the Tatars, 21 percent, and the Ukrainians, 12,8 percent. After deportation in 1944, and until 1989, the Crimean Tatars represented a minuscule minority - 1,5 percent of the population, with the Russians making up two thirds of the population and the Ukrainians one quarter. In 1993, Russians represented a decreasing majority of the population (61,6 percent), followed by Ukrainians (23.6 percent), and Crimean Tatars (9.6 percent). By the end of 1996, Tatars already made up 11,9 percent of the population.(Social Assessment of the Formerly Deported Population in ARC c.1.p.2).
303.	Within four years of deportation, according to Crimean Tatar sources, half of the estimated 200.000 deported Crimean Tatars perished. Inadequate housing and food, insufficient infrastructure, and a hostile climate contributed to high and mortality rates. The Crimean Tatars were required to report weekly to the local administration. They were allowed to leave the immediate area. They were barred from higher education and management posts. Meanwhile, in the Crimean peninsula, the Soviet authorities, after removing the Tatar culture: they resettled the area with Russians, destroyed Tatar religious sites, cultural monuments, burned Tatar literature and Russianized the names of towns and villages.(Social Assessment of the Formerly Deported Population in ARC c.t.p.5-6). So Crimean Tatars have enough arguments to define their deportation and followed up policy as an act of genocide. This is in correspondence with the analyses of international experts (UNO Doc.: E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/17, 213).
304.	But Ukrainian Government prefers not mention about the genocide or even about the Human Rights violations against Crimean Tatars. There are some reasons: - beginning from the 1954 the Government of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the co-organizers of this violations; - Ukrainian Government still hasn't restored the rights violated by the deportation so objectively this crime is still continuing on the fault of the Ukrainian Government; - Ukrainian Government recently created the legal and political basis for new violations; - Ukrainian Government violates the fundamental individual rights and freedoms of Crimean Tatars. The right for life and freedom against tortures to be included; - Ukrainian Government doesn't call for the responsibility and keep in their positions those officials and public figures in Crimea who are personally guilty for the racial discrimination and Human Rights violations (including pogroms, murders, arbitrary detentions, executions and administrative exiles) of Crimean Tatars in 60the - 90th. For example the Judge of Criminal Chamber of High Court of Autonomous Republic of Crimea Mrs. Roditeleva who led the-criminal processes in 60the -80the against the Crimean Tatars for the non-permitted coming back to Motherland.
305.	It may be illustrated by the following. After the deportation of Crimean Tatars the special policy of the wide scale immigration and implantation of the new settlers were arranged by the Soviet Government. Since the 1954 these actions were supported and partially organized by the Ukrainian Governments as well (there was a practice of the bringing new-settlers from different parts of continental Ukraine into Crimea). At the same time even after the liberation from the concentration camps in 1956 it was strictly forbidden for the Crimean Tatars to come back to their Motherland by the law. Those formerly deported peoples of the USSR who were liberated in 1950the mostly were allowed to repatriate and even to reestablish their national autonomous statehood in the framework of the USSR as Kalmiks, Chechenians, Ingushes, Balkars etc. But it was the position of Ukrainian Government to try to prevent the repatriation of the Crimean Tatars to their Motherland and to fulfill the Crimean peninsula with the settlers of other ethnic origin.
306.	The intention of the Ukrainian Government to stop the Crimean Tatars repatriation in the 1950the - 1980the was not based on the economic, social or environmental reasons. There was enough space at that time in Crimea for settlement and possibilities for the employment. The best proof is that between 1967 and 1987 more then 1 500 000 of people mostly Russians and Ukrainians were invited and implanted in Crimean due to the Governmental migration efforts. But the thousands of the families of Crimean Tatars who decided to come back to Crimea inspite of the prohibition became the victims of the Criminal Prosecution, detention and arbitrary exile. Some of Crimean Tatars were made to use those forms of the defense of their families as self-burn (well - known in Crimea incident with the tragic death of Musa Mamut on 26the of June of 1978).
307.	Other point is that at the end of the 1980th-beginning of 1990th the tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars started their mass repatriation. The Government didn't want and couldn't accept those people. But if as a least the Ukrainian Government would grant the plots of lands for the construction of the houses for Crimean Tatars by their own hands and with their own finances in 1990 - 1991st the process of the repatriation and resettlement of this people would finish already. Automatically the problem of the Ukrainian citizenship would be solved because the majority of Crimean Tatars would receive it as the residents of Ukraine till the 13th of November of 1991.
308.	Inspite of this Ukrainian Government refused to give the land for the Crimean Tatars but at the same time it distributed for the post-deportation and settlers in Crimea for the rest houses and villas more the 150 000 plots of lands. It would be enough for entire Crimean Tatar people. In order to prevent the occupation of land by the Crimean Tatars de-facto Ukrainian Parliament strengthened the criminal penalty for that behavior and allowed using of the special militia troops against squatters. The authorities with the participation of militia, National Guard and paramilitary civilian troop in 1989-1992 arranged more them 20 cases of the pogroms of the newly built Crimean Tatar's settlements and temporary tent camps.
309.	Those measures didn't stop the Crimean Tatars but they slowed up the repatriation. The burst of inflation in 1991st - 1993rd burned the private money of the Crimean Tatars and created that situation which The Crimean Tatars have now.

Claim for State Program of Repatriation