In 1956 the punitive surveillance regime was lifted from the Crimean Tatars.
The decree of 5 September 1967, “On citizens of Tatar nationality who used to reside in the Crimea”, lifted the restrictions on their choice of a place of residence (and at the same time, by its title, abolished them as a nation).
After the decree, as stated in the 1971 “Appeal to the 24th Congress of the Communist Party” (CCE 31.12), thousands of families went to the Crimea, but only hundreds were able to stay.
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“IRREFUTABLE FACTS”
Another document of the national movement “Irrefutable Facts from the Life of the Crimean Tatars in the Period 1967-1973” (henceforth, for brevity, called “Irrefutable Facts”) says that in 1968-1969 about nine hundred families settled in the Crimea.
Roughly 250 of these came through an official labour recruitment campaign, which ceased (for the Crimean Tatars) towards the end of 1969. Another six hundred families, who had come independently, managed to register their residence, some of them after undergoing one or more deportations. In 1967-1969 the family of Fevzi Poska was expelled from the Crimea five times, and the family of Asan Chobanov (nine persons), twice.
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A Crimean Tatar trying to return to his Homeland is met with a blank wall of “form-filling”: he or she must obtain a residence permit, and contracts for work and house purchase.
How this system works is evident from the personal statements included in CCE 31 (items 4-8). In “Irrefutable Facts” 53 families are named (almost all in villages), who have not been able to acquire residence permits and work, some ever since 1968.
More persistent, especially collective efforts to breach this wall are met with repression on the part of the authorities. According to “A Countrywide Demand” (CCE 31.20), 32 deportations under armed escort have been carried out since 1968 in the Crimea, involving about 6,000 people.
There has also been a series of trials, in particular “for evading residence registration”.
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DEPORTATIONS
The mass deportations of May-June 1968, which were accompanied by arrests and bodily assaults, were reported before by the Chronicle (CCE 7.7). One such deportation is described in Mamedi Chobanov‘s statement (CCE 31.6).
On 12 July 1968, twelve families were deported to Tashkent from the “Bolshevik” State Farm (CCE 5.4 [1]). The family of Fevzi Seidalliyev went from Tashkent to Moscow to address complaints to the Party’s Central Committee and the Supreme Soviet. In Moscow, KGB officials arrested Seidalliyev, while the other members of his family were sent back to Central Asia. Subsequently it was reported to them from Dnepropetrovsk Prison that Seidalliyev had died: the circumstances of his death remain unknown.
In “Irrefutable Facts” there is also a report of the deportation on 30 November 1972 from the village of Beshterek (now the hamlets ‘Donskoye’ and ‘Spokoinoye’) of three families living in houses they had bought, the purchase of which had not been registered: Dzhemil Kurtseitov with his wife and two children; Esmer Mezinov with his wife and three children; and Fatime Gubanova with her four children (her husband E.P. Gubanov, see below, was then in prison).
This action provoked a letter of protest, with 585 signatures, to Kirichenko, 1st secretary of the Crimean Region committee of the Party. Entitled “A Constitution-Day Surprise for the Crimean Tatars”, it is also described in Uris Kurtseitova‘s letter (CCE 31.7).
A detachment of 52 men carried out the deportation: police, druzhinniki and bailiffs. The letter of protest says that, despite the indignation and entreaties of the inhabitants of the village, “the keepers of the peace continued to fling children, women and belongings into cars”. Even the pregnant Kurtseitova, and Gubanova, who was in bed with blood pressure of 280, were subjected to brutal treatment. The latter was given an injection and dragged into a bus.
Towards midnight the evicted were brought to the Partisans rail station (in Ukraine’s Kherson Region), the inhabitants of which sheltered them, and after assembling the next morning in the square, expressed their indignation at the actions of the authorities. Thanks to this, as Kurtseitova reports, on the following day they were all returned home. A representative of the Regional Party committee, Shabalov, acknowledged the illegality of the action (“it was done by illiterates”) and proposed that they should again “apply for the registration of the houses”. However, as the fate of Kurtseitova shows, the persecution did not end there.
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TRIALS
(from the document “Irrefutable Facts”)
In 1968, not only Mamedi Chobanov, but also F. Izmailov (6 months) and M. Yusupov were convicted.
In April 1969 Gomer Bayev was sentenced to two years under Article 190-1 (CCE 7.1), in July Eldar Shabanov was banished for two years from the Crimea under Article 196 (UkSSR criminal code) for evading residence registration (CCE 31.4), as was Dzhafar Asanov (Article 196).
In 1972, on 18 April, Usein Asanov (Article 196) was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment; on 20 August Mambet Din Ogly was sentenced to one year (he earlier served an 18-month sentence), and in September, Ismail Akhmetov. The last two trials were carried out secretly, without the relatives knowing, in a police building.
On 5 October 1972, E. P. Gubanov, a Russian married to a Crimean Tatar, was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment; on 9 October Akhmet Tokhlu was banished (Article 196) for two years from the Crimea (CCE 31.5).
The 1973 trial of Dzhemil Kurtseitov, Eivaz Mustafayev and Ridvan Charukhov, charged with rowdy assault, has been described by Kurtseitov’s wife (CCE 31.7).
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ANTI-TATAR PROPAGANDA
“Irrefutable Facts”, like other statements by the Crimean Tatars, reports on anti-Tatar propaganda in the Crimea. In particular, such facts as the following are listed.
In the book Stars of Unfading Glory (Krymizdat, 1967) all the Heroes of the Soviet Union from the Crimea are named — except for the Heroes who were Crimean Tatars.
An exception is made only for Sultan Akhmetan, twice a Hero. It is known, however, that all the efforts to open a memorial museum in his former home in Alupka (CCE 31.15) have proved to be in vain.
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In July 1972 four Crimean Tatars were convicted in Simferopol who had participated in the atrocities of the wartime occupiers.
At the trial, despite the official exculpation of the nation, the State prosecutor Modlenko spoke about the mass treason of the Crimean Tatars and threatened: “Let the traitors remember: they have no Motherland, and let their children remember.” This propaganda was effective: the director of a furniture enterprise in Simferopol, Safronov, refused the worker Server Zeidlayev a place in a hostel with the words: “Your people threw children down wells.”
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The position of Crimean Tatars who have moved from their places of exile to southern Ukraine (mainly to the Kherson Region), reports “Irrefutable Facts”, is analogous to the position of their compatriots in the Crimea; it names 13 families, for example, who are illegally being refused residence registration and work.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 