Crimean Tatar leader Jemilev receives Nansen Medal for assisting refugees (10/11/98)

Crimean Tatar leader Jemilev receives Nansen Medal for assisting refugees

UNHCR Office of Public Information

GENEVA - A Crimean Tatar activist, Mustafa Jemilev, received the 1998 Nansen Medal today in recognition of his outstanding efforts to help Crimean Tatars reintegrate in their native Ukraine.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata presented the medal to Mr. Jemilev, 55, at a ceremony here at the Palais des Nations. Mr. Jemilev, she said, was chosen "for his commitment to the right of return of the Crimean Tatar people." The Nansen Medal is awarded for exceptional service to the cause of refugees.

Mr. Jemilev was born in 1943 in Crimea. In May 1944, when he was less than a year old, Stalin's troops rounded up the entire Tatar population - around 200,000 people - and based on unfounded accusations of collaboration with the Nazis, deported them to Central Asia.

In 1961, at the age of 19, Mr. Jemilev joined the Union of Young Crimean Tatars and the peaceful struggle for recognition of the rights of the deported Crimean Tatar population. His name is also inextricably linked to the Soviet dissident movement. In 1969, with Andrei Sakharov and other human rights activists, he co-founded the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR. For 20 years between 1966 and 1986, he lived alternately under surveillance, in hard-labor amps, in forced exile and in Soviet prisons.

While still in exile, Mr. Jemilev committed himself to defend of the basic rights of his people. In 1987 he was elected to the Central Initiative Group of Crimean Tatars, and in May 1989 he was chosen to head the newly founded Crimean Tatar National Movement. That same year he returned to Crimea with his family, spearheading the return of more than 250,000 Tatars to their homeland.

The new government of Ukraine gave the Tatars permission to return to Crimea in 1989, after more than 40 years of Soviet-imposed exile in Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and various locales in the Russian Federation. It asked the UNHCR to help in addressing the numerous problems arising from their return, including the question of citizenship.

A recent agreement between Ukraine and Uzbekistan has simplified the procedure for the renunciation of Uzbek citizenship and acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship by Crimean Tatars who have returned to Ukraine. High Commissioner Ogata welcomed the bilateral agreement as a "major step in finding a lasting solution for those Crimean Tatars who have returned and are already stateless or threatened with statelessness."

As president of the Council of Crimean Tatars (the Mejlis) and as a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, Mr. Jemilev has worked tirelessly side by side with UNHCR to help tens of thousands of Tatars to resettle in Crimea, to obtain Ukrainian citizenship and to uphold their basic rights.

The Nansen Medal is named after the Norwegian diplomat and explorer Fridtjof Nansen, the first high commissioner for refugees under the League of Nations. The prize was established to focus attention on refugees and to rally international support for the plight of forcibly displaced people. The Nansen Committee, which is chaired by High Commissioner Ogata, consists of representatives of the governments of Norway and Switzerland, the Council of Europe, and the International Council of Voluntary Agencies.

The first Nansen Medal was awarded in 1954 to Eleanor Roosevelt. The medal has been awarded 38 times since 1954.

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