Polish Sejm recognises Soviet deportation of Crimean Tatars as genocide

The Polish Sejm (the lower chamber of the Polish parliament) adopted a resolution on Friday, 12 July, which commemorates the victims of the 1944 genocide of Crimean Tatars when they were deported from Crimea by the Soviet authorities.

The resolution was approved by the Polish Sejm, with 414 members voting in favour, 16 against, and two abstaining.

The resolution emphasises that the Soviet authorities initiated the deportation of Crimean Tatars from the Crimean Peninsula on the morning of 18 May 1944, forcibly relocating nearly 200,000 people to Central Asia and Siberia within three days.

It also states that "the deportation of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea in 1944 and its consequences were an act of genocide against the Crimean Tatar people".

"The Ukrainian state honours the memory of the victims of the Soviet genocide on 18 May, the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the 1944 Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People," the resolution of the Polish Sejm reads.

Polish lawmakers separately recalled the annexation of Crimea in 2014, "which was one of the first chords of Russia's war against Ukraine" and is a violation of the principle of territorial integrity and a gross violation of international law and the UN Charter.

In 2022, Canada's House of Commons unanimously recognised the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars as an act of genocide. Before that, the deportation of Crimean Tatars was recognised as genocide in Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania.