16th session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Item 3: Study and advice on the impact of militarization on the rights of Indigenous Peoples
Statement presented by Eskender Bariiev, the Had of the board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, the member of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People
Dear Chairman! Brothers and Sisters!
I express my gratitude to the member countries for supporting Ukraine against Russia’s war crimes.
Unfortunately, I cannot call this study objective.
Is the expert mechanism not aware of the worst war of the 21st century, which Russia started in Ukraine
This war has already taken more than 300,000 lives.
Russia is grossly violating basic principles of international law.
Paragraph 31 does not refer to Crimea as Russia-occupied territory and calls the military aggression a conflict in Ukraine. It is not noted that Russia does not comply with the decision of the UN International Court of Justice to lift the ban on Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people.
Paragraph 32 lacks information that indigenous peoples of the North Caucasus, Buryatia, Siberia and the Urals, as well as of indigenous Crimean Tatar people in occupied Crimea are subjected to forced mobilization in Russia which has led to mass emigration of men to third countries, which is not reflected in paragraph 41.
Paragraph 36 fails to mention the settlement of over 1 million Russians in the occupied Crimea and the mass repression of the Crimean Tatar people.
I call on the Expert Mechanism to take these observations into account in the study and for Russia to stop the war and withdraw its army from Ukraine.