R. Dzhemilev threatened, March 1978 (48.14-2)

<<No 48 : 14 March 1978>>

14-1. Mustafa Dzhemilev at liberty
14-2. Threats to Reshat Dzhemilev
14-3. In the Crimea

On 10 February 1978 a meeting of management personnel was held at the Tashkent firm ‘Uzorgtekhstroi’ (the Uzbek Organization for Technical Construction), where Reshat Dzhemilev [¹] works as deputy head of one of the departments.

A paper was delivered on “The education of cadres in the spirit of Socialist Patriotism” and those summoned to the meeting had to sign an attendance register.

“SOCIALIST PATRIOTISM”

After making general observations, the speaker said there were dissidents in the USSR (Sakharov, Grigorenko and others) who were carrying on hostile activities, and among their friends was Reshat Dzhemilev, who had long been engaged in circulating slanderous fabrications.

The speaker also named certain of Dzhemilev’s activities: speaking at Alexei Kostyorin’s funeral (1968), his statement in defence of Ivan Yakhimovich (1969) and other items from the criminal cases brought against Reshat Dzhemilev in 1969 [dropped, Chronicle] and 1972. On 28 November 1977, he went on to inform the meeting, Dzhemilev had spoken at a press-conference in Moscow where he said that the Crimean Tatar people was being subjected to genocide. Extracts were also read out from a Radio Liberty broadcast about R. Dzhemilev’s letter to the King of Saudi Arabia.

When Dzhemilev was allowed to speak he included in his statement information on the history of the Crimean Tatars; he told the meeting about the acts of persecution in the Crimea and the fate of Mustafa Dzhemilev [²], in whose defence he had appealed to the Saudi Arabian king.

Several other people spoke at the meeting. One said:

“Dzhemilev speaks of genocide. How are we to understand him in relation to the Soviet regime? It turns out that Dzhemilev is equating the Soviet regime with fascism.”

Crimean Tatar Memetov stated that he had not noticed any harassment, that his father, for instance, held a high post, and that the family had no intention of going to the Crimea.

Someone else proposed an appeal to the government to deprive Grigorenko of his general’s rank and to the Academy of Sciences to expel Sakharov. The enterprise director responded that the first had been done long ago; and it was not for them to instruct the Academy of Sciences.

A RESOLUTION

A resolution was put to the meeting that Reshat Dzhemilev did not represent the Crimean Tatar people: he made slanderous statements and had been punished for this, but he had “understood nothing” and was continuing the same activity.

The workforce of the enterprise, the resolution said [1] asks the enterprise management to consider Dzhemilev’s further tenure of a management post and [2] asks the Visa & Registration Department (OVIR) not to give him permission to leave the country, since once abroad he might damage the Soviet State. (About a year ago R. Dzhemilev submitted documents for emigration on an invitation from relatives living in the USA. He was refused and applied a second time — there has as yet been no answer.)

One of those present at the meeting wanted to speak after this, but was not allowed to do so by the chairman, who said that discussion had ended. Nonetheless, the objector managed to say that he considered the resolution to be legally illiterate: the meeting had no right to put forward such accusations.

Hastily taking a vote, the chairman declared the resolution unanimously passed: several people neither raised their hands for nor against the resolution.

LETTERS

The meeting also approved the text of three letters: [1] to A.D. Sakharov and [2] to Radio Liberty, saying that they were using the services of a renegade who represented no-one; and [3] to OVIR with a request not to give Dzhemilev permission to emigrate.

It is not known whether these letters were sent — Sakharov did not receive a letter from the enterprise. However, a similar letter reached the Moscow flat of P.G. Grigorenko:

Uzbek SSR, Tashkent

172 Mukimy St., ‘Uzorgtekhstroi’ enterprise

22 February 1978

“After discussion of the conduct of our colleague Reshat Dzhemilev at a meeting in the ‘Uzorgtekhstroi’ enterprise of the Uzbek SSR Ministry of Construction our collective declares to you its indignation at your attempts to disorient world public opinion on the position of the Crimean Tatars in the USSR.

“The case in point is your support for Reshat Dzhemilev’s statement before Western press correspondents on 28 November last year, which was broadcast the same day by the Deutsche Welle radio-station.

“In the process of discussion, we became convinced that Dzhemilev is slandering Soviet reality and his Crimean Tatar people, with whom he has long had nothing in common.

“Not knowing the true position of the Crimean Tatars, you are speculating in the slanderous fabrications of renegades of Dzhemilev’s type, trying to popularize them in the West for mercenary objectives.

“Several Crimean Tatars are employed in our workforce, all of them have higher education and enjoy all the rights of Soviet citizens.

“We would like to ask you, when did Reshat Dzhemilev become a fighter for civil rights? Perhaps it was when he decided to emigrate permanently to the USA and made the statement referred to above in order to curry sympathy in dubious circles in the West, earning himself thirty pieces of silver?

“On behalf of the collective of the ‘Uzorgtekhstroi’ enterprise.

“Presidium of the Meeting:

Ye. I. Gavrilov, I. A. Sulkovsky, L. S. Manasyan, A. N. Aliyev, A. Kh. Khudaiberdiyev

.

At meetings of Party activists in Tashkent in February accounts were given of the meeting described above: it was said that “the enterprise collective really flattened Dzhemilev”.