Evictions
In August 1976 more evictions took place.
On 9 August at 3 am policemen and vigilantes made a raid on the house of Mustafa Abilev in the village of Bogatoye, and at 5 am on the house of Enver Ametov in the village of Kurskoye. About 50 Crimean Tatars sent a protest declaration about this to the Belgorod district soviet executive committee. The declaration describes how the Abilevs were evicted:
‘The local policeman Kharchenko broke down the door. The drunken vigilantes rushed into the house and started to snatch up the sleeping children. The family was pushed into a bus, suffering bodily injury. When a child tried to escape through a bus window, the window was wound up to squash its neck.
‘The household goods were thrown higgledy-piggledy into lorries. Furniture and household articles were broken up with axes to get them out faster. During the eviction, thieves robbed the Abilev family of 1,000 roubles. Their total material losses added up to 2,210 roubles.’
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The eviction of the Ametovs was led by the same Kharchenko.
Here too, money was stolen and objects broken. Enver himself was not at home. Aishe Ametova, together with her 2-year-old son and her belongings, was driven far out into the steppe. Then a bulldozer was brought up to the house, but the neighbours would not allow it to be demolished. (On 11 May a house Ametov had just bought in another village was demolished, see CCE 40.11).
When Enver Ametov tried in Belogorsk to discover the fate of his family, he was sent from one department to another. The secretary of the district soviet executive committee said the KGB was in charge of such matters, but the district KGB administration denied any involvement in the eviction of Crimean Tatar families.
The above-mentioned declaration states that on 22 June 1976 KGB official Ilinov told Ametov at a meeting of the administrative commission of the Belogorsk district soviet executive committee: ‘Get out of the Crimea. If you don’t go, we’ll evict you.’ The declaration also points out that A. K. Ponomarenko, Chairman of the Murom village soviet, and A. Ya. Veretilov, a Party organizer, had said in the presence of 12 people who had come to the village soviet about the eviction of Veis Faizullayev (CCE 41.9): ‘The eviction of families and the registration of Tatars for residence is undertaken only on the orders of the KGB and the police.’
A declaration in defence of Mustafa Abilev was also written by 23 of his fellow-villagers, Russians and Ukrainians. For this, they were threatened and told that they would not receive any seed from the collective farm.
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CCE 41.9 reported the trial of the Usmanovs, father and son (to be more exact, the Osmanovs, but in Uzbekistan, when Tatars are given passports, officials often write their names in the Uzbek form). On 28 August Seit-Asan Osmanov and his wife were driven with their belongings to the station at Dzhankoi. Here ‘fifteen-day convicts’ were brought up to unload their things: those who refused were threatened with a supplementary sentence. The Osmanovs did not send their belongings away, but, with the help of a group of Crimean Tatars, returned to the village of Shcherbakovo and settled once more in their own house, in spite of opposition from the police.
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On 25 August Yagya Kenzhametov, his wife and 12-year-old daughter (his son is serving in the army) were evicted from the village of Zolotoye Pole. His house was demolished by a tractor. Direct instructions had been given by Rublov, first secretary of the Kirov district Party committee. The neighbouring residents tried to hinder the eviction. One of them, Umer Dzheinarov from the village of Lgovka, was sentenced to 15 days’ imprisonment for this on 27 August.
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Resmiye Yunusova and Memet Seitveliyev, together with their paralysed child, are still living in a tent near their twice-demolished house (CCE 40.11, CCE 41.9).
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Trials
The Chronicle has information about the activity of only one district court, in Kirov district. In three days, 31 August, 1 and 2 September, this court gave out four judgements proclaiming the purchase of houses null and void.
The court also heard five criminal cases under Article 196 of the UkSSR Criminal Code, ‘infringement of the residence regulations’.
On about 20 August Abibulla Khalilov from the village of Grushevka was given a suspended sentence of 2 years under this Article. In his speech for the prosecution Procurator Zelenov talked about the importance of the passport system: it helped to provide the population with work and sustenance and gave the authorities necessary information about the personalities of citizens. This was why persons who had been refused a residence permit had to move out immediately. The defence lawyer I. I. Chaiko questioned the accused, asking him why he had earlier not denied his guilt but had refused to plead guilty at the trial. In his closing speech for the defence, the lawyer said that his client had made three mistakes: he had not been well informed about the possibility of obtaining a residence permit when he had arrived from Tashkent Region; he had bought a house without first applying to a notary public; he had not left when he failed to obtain a residence permit. The notary’s refusal to make out a contract because a Crimean residence permit was lacking was justified, according to the lawyer. The lawyer called for a mild sentence, because Khalilov, as he put it, had ‘got stranded’ in the Crimea, simply lacking the money for the return journey.
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On 1 September Shevket Arnautov from the town of Stary Krym was sentenced to 2 years in strict-regime labour camps. He has two children; his wife Susanna Chalvash, who is soon expecting a third child, has been told she is to be sued for annulment of the purchase of their house.
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On 2 September three residents of the village of Grushevka were tried.
Ridvan Useinov was sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment, replaceable by forced labour at the direction of the MVD. Reshat Shabanov and Ablyakim Yagyayev were sentenced to 2 years’ banishment. [Sentences inaccurate, see CCE 44.23.]
On 2 September in the town of Belogorsk Mukhsim Osmanov, a 45-year-old Group I invalid (he was blinded when working as a welder) was charged under Article 196. In Belogorsk district charges under Article 196 have also been brought against Enver Ametov and Murat Voyenny.
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On 26 August several dozen Crimean Tatars met together in order to appeal to the Regional Soviet Executive Committee about residence permits and employment. It was a day for the reception of petitioners.
Unlike 18 November 1975, when the police dispersed people who had already gathered at the committee building (CCE 39.6), this time preventive measures were taken. In a number of villages, the police went round the homes of Crimean Tatars and told them that no one was to leave, a commission on non-registered persons might arrive. The police removed Crimean Tatars from buses bound for Simferopol. About 30 people managed nevertheless to get into the committee building, but the chairman would not receive them.
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In the town of Stary Krym a police official asked the headmaster of the middle school not to allow children who were unregistered residents to attend the school. The headmaster replied that he had to carry out the law on universal education, while registration for residence was a matter for the police, not the schools.
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On 5 September Aishe Seitmuratova and Enver Ametov were made to get out of a car leaving Belogorsk and were taken to Simferopol, to the Regional administration of the MVD.
Here Ametov was released after being searched (his notebook was confiscated), but A. Seitmuratova was interrogated (without a record being made). The persons who detained Seitmuratova, Second Police Lieutenant Lyutikov and a man who did not give his name, reproached her for the fact that Western radio stations broadcast reports on the position of Crimean Tatars in the Crimea. Aishe replied that the origin of these reports lay in the illegal actions of the police and other representatives of authority. Seitmuratova was informed that she was ‘an undesirable person’ in the Crimea, and that she would be put on an aeroplane bound for Moscow (she herself had said she was planning to go to Moscow). At the airport the same two persons took Seitmuratova to the plane when the other passengers had already taken their seats. On discovering in the cabin that the plane was bound for Tashkent, Seitmuratova ran out into the gangway, but her ‘escorts’ twisted her arms behind her and pushed her back.
In Tashkent a watch was established on the house where Seitmuratova was staying.
On 8 September Aishe Seitmuratova sent a protest to the USSR Procurator-General. She asked for the incident to be investigated and the officials who had committed violent, illegal actions to be punished, and she called on the Procurator-General to ‘defend her human and civil rights’.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 