I. Every person belonging to a national minority shall have the right freely to choose to be treated or not to be treated as such and no disadvantage shall result from this choice or from the exercise of the rights which are connected to that choice.
2. Persons belonging to national minorities may exercise the rights and enjoy the freedoms flowing from the principles enshrined in the present framework Convention individually as well as in community with others.

Undermining of Ethnic Self-Identification

58.	For Crimean Tatars during the decades after the deportation thus were prohibited to call themselves by their native name of the people. "Crimean Tatars" didn't exist officially in the USSR.
59.	At first, legal status of Crimean Tatars was determined "special settlers" afterwards the Soviet legislation repudiated and ignored the existence of Crimean Tatar people in fact. For instance, when taking population census Crimean Tatar were registered as "Tatar", i.e. were identified to other Turkic origin peoples populating Volga region and Siberia.
60.	The law of Ukraine and new Ukrainian passports don't determine national belonging of the citizen. But for Crimean Tatars this is a new negative impact on their national identity, dignity and self-respect.
61.	Formally Government declares that it undertook very progressive measure excluding the note about the ethnic belonging from the official documents.
62.	The governmental officials for their own purposes have the information about the ethnic belonging of any concerned person or a group which can be identified by names, surnames etc. But formally they can refuse to present any data concerning the real situation of the different national groups referring to this point.
63.	The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of UNO in its Conclusion observations on December 28th, 1995 tried to turn the attention of the Ukrainian Government to this fact: �The Committee calls attention to the difficulties experienced by members of minority groups, including Crimean Tatars, which were deported decades earlier and are now returning to resettle in Ukraine, on the land of their ancestors. In particular, the Committee is concerned that the consequent exclusion of such persons from certain social indicators, such as those about employment and poverty, may deprive them of the full enjoyment of their economic, social and cultural rights. In this connection, it recalls the provisions of article 2, which states that the rights enunciated in the Covenant must be exercised without discrimination of any kind, inter alia, as to national or social origin." (See (UNO Doc.: E/C.12/1995/15, 15). However, the Ukrainian Government failure to take into account this note and still continues to keep silence about the real situation with the observation of Human Rights of Crimean Tatars.
64.	Crimean Tatars expect that their ethnic belonging should be included into official notes to the documents as an optional opportunity for the person who desires to by his own accord.

Legal Status of Crimean Tatars

65.	In order to look for the international standards which Ukrainian Government must take into consideration for the solution of this problem we need to pay attention to;
66.	Crimean Tatars are not simply ethnic group or national minority, but the entire people so far as all elements of the definition are characteristic to its which were appeared during discussion of the definition by United Nation. a) the term people means a social identity, possessing a well-defined individuality and which has their own characteristics; b) it proposes a contact with any territory, if even the present people was unjustly exiled from it or was artificially substituted by other population (as it was directly made with Crimean Tatars). c) it should not confuse the people with ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities, which existence and rights are recognized by Article 27 of International Pact on Civil and Political Rights (UNO Doc.: E/CN.4/Sub.2/404/Rev.1, 279).
67.	UNESCO experts on the furthest search of the human rights gave one of the last and most detailed definitions of the people on February 1990, in Paris.
68.	�People regarding as people, possessing the rights, in accordance with the international law, including the right of self-determination is to correspond to the definitions: a) general historical tradition; b) racial or ethnic identity; c) cultural homogeneity; d) linguistic unity; e) general economical life.
69.	The group is to consist of some number of individuals, which is not bound must be large (example, people of micro-states), but it is to be larger, than simply association of individuals within a state.
70.	Group, as a whole is to have a will to be identified as a people, or who has a home consent for existence as a people, admitting, that can be the groups or members of those, who possess these characteristics, but they can not have an appropriate will to it.
71.	Probably, the group is to have institutions or other means of expression its general characteristics and a will to identity�.
72.	Crimean Tatars correspond to all characteristics, which were given above.
73.	As a result of the Russian's Empire centuries-old aspiration by the way of repression, deportation and other violence to destroy or at least to assimilate Crimean Tatars, afterwards Soviet Union policy of genocide they have been turned into insignificant minority in their own historical, native land, but they did not become and feel themselves as a minority in juridical international meaning. Currently, only one of the characteristics is lacked to Crimean Tatar People- this is a common economical life. But, it is understandable that, after deportation and settling on a territory of some republics, and now in the hardest period of repatriation, such community was artificially demolished, and it could not be restored in a short time.
74.	Currently, the legal status of the Crimean Tatars is not defined in Ukraine, and in this connection, they are officially considered, namely as "national minority", and their status is equated to diasporas of other peoples, living in Ukraine and who have their historical homeland, and often kin � state outside. Interesting fact is that majority of Crimean Tatars is not even the "national minority" in Ukraine because that the status refers only to the citizens and more then half of Crimean Tatar community is not the citizens of Ukraine. Crimean Tatars have no statehood through which they would be able to promote their interests in Ukraine through the external protection and bilateral agreements because the own State of Crimean Tatars Crimean Khanate doesn't exist now and whose territory is under complete jurisdiction of Ukraine.
75.	Nevertheless, the Crimean Tatar People not only kept many customs: spoken language, but also are restoring actively by their own efforts, without support, and usually with opposition of the local authorities, basic social and cultural institutions, including the most important of them - Kurultay of Crimean Tatar People (National Congress) and Mejlis of Crimean Tatar People (National Assembly).
76.	Thus, the Crimean Tatars are classic example of the entire People on the territory of the independent state of Ukraine.
77.	Present ethnic and demographic composition of Crimean population produces the situation where post migrants and settlers prevail in all areas of public life and are totally controlling local administration and regional parliament.

Problem of Re-Establishment

78.	Crimean Tatars are deported people. "The formerly deported peoples - these are the peoples which in the Soviet period were deported from their historical Motherland" (UNO Doc.: CISCONF/1996/6, Appendix 2, 9). See as well the article 7, para. 1 (d), para. 2 (d) of Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (UNO Doc.; A/CONF. 183/9).
79.	So we have a situation where the Ukrainian State is carrying out the policy which should be overviewed through the standards of articles 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 of the Draft of the Declaration on the Population Transfer and Implantation of the Settlers, (UNO Doc.; E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/23, Appendix II).
80.	Ukrainian Government uses two approaches to avoid solving this problem. The first one is to try to keep the silence and to escape its responsibility for the restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatars as a people. The second one is to propose those kinds of legal measures, which are not in accordance with the international obligations on Human Rights or even with the Constitution and Civil Code of Ukraine trying to minimize the responsibility of the State and to use only the decorative measures. For example the last draft of the law of Ukraine about the rehabilitation ensuring of the rights of the members of the Minorities formerly deported from Ukraine is not in accordance with the principle of the complete and equal rights and just restitution.
81.	Formally for taking back of the houses and other possessions confiscated from the Crimean Tatar owners in 1944 it is not required to have the special law. The Civil Code of Ukraine has legal mechanism of the restoration of the ownership in the cases of the illegal confiscation. But the Crimean and Ukrainian courts refuse to consider these cases referring to the absence of the special law. At the same time the property and the land taken off from the Crimean Tatars are transferred to the new-settlers not only to the possession but also to the ownership through the privatization.
82.	Ukrainian Government didn't even pay attention to the fact that Special Reporters on population transfer of the Sub-Commission on the prevention and protection of Minorities Mr. Shaukat AI-Hasawne had pointed out in his report that Crimean Tatars coming back to the country of their ancestors face the occupation of their houses and land by the other immigrants that however doesn't prima facie create the material impossibility for the restitution (UNO Doc.: E/CN/4/Sub/2/1994/18, 96).
83.	So there is the situation when the national group is denied the right of legacy and the right to the land for the advantage of the other ethnic groups as the Russians and Ukrainians.
84.	Ukrainian Parliament will adopt this law then Government will use it in order to deny the necessity to restore the rights of Crimean Tatar People in accordance with the international Human Rights standards (for instance see the Main Principles and Guidelines Relating the Right for the Restitution of the Victims of the Brutal Violations of the Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. (UNO Doc.: E/CN.4/Sub/2/1996/17, Appendix).
85.	For example that Draft doesn't have the provisions about real estate and land restitution, restoration of the official status of Crimean Tatar language in Crimea, the right to political representation and participation, right to restitution confiscated cultural values as well as re - establishment of the educational and scientific institutions, to real participation in privatization, to the recognition of the Institutions of Self - Governments of Crimean Tatars such as Kurultay and Mejlis, to the automatic and free granting of Ukrainian citizenship, to the free choice of the place of the settlement etc. But it has a provision stating the the restoration of the Rights of the deportees shouldn't violate the rights of new-settlers that in the conditions of Crimea means that nothing will be done really due to the absolute domination of new-settlers. The Government having receipted a lot of objections and protest from CT, tries to pass this draft through Parliament aiming only to escape from the criticism and responsibility on the international scene. Practically, there exists in Crimea �institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination of one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed to the intention of maintaining that regime" (See UNO Doc.: A/CONF.183/9, 7 para. 2, h)).
86.	Crimean Tatars as it was shown in the Background have had a long period of the existence as a sovereign nation. Tsar's Russia destroyed their statehood but nevertheless the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921 - 1944 was established as a national and political autonomy of Crimean Tatar People in the framework of the regime of the USSR. The process of the restoration of Human Rights of the Crimean Tatar People naturally expects to have the problem of legal determination and definition of the status of this people in Ukraine.
87.	The transfer of the Crimean peninsula, native land of Crimean Tatars, was made when Crimean Tatar People was factually held in concentration camps. Thus the importance of this question is growing obviously. The most acceptable is the concept of Indigenous People including the Right for internal Self-Determination, which allows the Ukrainian State to preserve its territorial integrity and at the same time to promote the vital interests of Crimean Tatars. However the right of self determination of Crimean Tatar People was not an object to the Ukraine's attention, in spite of the Mejlis of Crimean Tatar People has insistently and repeatedly tried to draw attention of the President, Parliament and Government of Ukraine to the necessity of legal settlement of a state and a status related issues of Crimean Tatar People in Ukraine.
88.	The Law on National Minorities of Ukraine is absolutely not enough to guarantee the realization of the Human Rights of Crimean Tatar people because it define only some cultural and linguistic rights but not political, economic and social ones. On the other hand this law provides the rights of the minorities who are the majorities in any region in fact. Crimean Tatars are practically in minority in all administrative districts of their Motherland, in the smallest ones. However the Government doesn't want to consider the situation and undertake an adequate measures.

Citizenship Problem