Czech Senate recognises Crimean Tatars' deportation as act of genocide

On Wednesday, 18 December, the Czech Senate (the upper house of the Czech Parliament) recognised the mass deportation of the Crimean Tatars as an act of genocide.

Mariia Mezentseva, head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), announced that the Czech Senate has unanimously recognised the mass deportation of the Crimean Tatars as an act of genocide.

The Senate website says that 76 senators were present. Seventy of them voted in favour, four abstained, and no one voted against.

Mezentseva added that the delegation invited Mustafa Dzhemilev, Ukraine’s Commissioner for the Crimean Tatar People, to speak, and that the Senate gave him a standing ovation.

In 2022, Canada's House of Commons unanimously recognised the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars as an act of genocide. The deportation had previously been recognised as genocide in Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania.

In July, the Polish Sejm (the lower house of parliament) passed a resolution honouring the memory of the victims of the Crimean Tatar genocide in 1944, when they were deported from Crimea by  the Soviet authorities.

The Estonian parliament, the Riigikogu, adopted a statement on Wednesday, 16 October marking the 80th anniversary of the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars and recognising it as an act of genocide.