Crimean Tatars: Mustafa Jemilev Nominated for Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize candidate Mustafa Jemilev sees his nomination as a recognition of the attempts by the Crimean Tatars to promote their objectives in a peaceful matter.
Below is a press release published by the Kyiv Post:
The chairman of the Mejlis, the parliament of the Crimean Tatars, and MP from OU-PSD faction, Mustafa Dzhemilev, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, Radio Liberty reported on Tuesday [1 February 2011].
The president of the World Congress of the Crimean Tatars, Refat Chubarov, said that a relevant application to the Nobel Committee was submitted by 17 professors from Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Turkey and the United States, as well as from three acting MPs from Ukraine (BYT-Batkivschyna member Borys Tarasiuk), Canada and the EU.
The International Association on Protection of Repressed People, which is based in Germany, put forward an initiative to nominate the candidacy of Dzhemilev for the prize.
Two years ago the First World Congress of Crimean Tatars also proposed the candidacy of Chubarov for the prize.
But, as Chubarov said, under the rules of the Nobel Committee they could not to submit an application directly to the committee.
Dzhemilev told Radio Liberty he saw his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize as not just as recognition for his own merits, but as the recognition of long-standing attempts by the Crimean Tatars to solve problems peacefully.
