Ekaterina Vinnik on Vesti.FM: foreign NGOs ‘protecting’ rights of national minorities have nothing to do in Crimea

The activities of NGOs that could attempt to claim violations of the rights of national minorities, in particular, the Crimean Tatars, are impeded on the Crimean peninsula, due to the fact that their rights and freedoms are guaranteed and protected within the framework of the Russian Constitution, the analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza, Ekaterina Vinnik said today in the National Question program, commenting on the topic of the foreign organizations engaged in ‘protecting’ the rights of national minorities in Russia.

Ekaterina Vinnik noted that over the past four years the situation regarding the Crimean-Tatar population in Crimea has changed drastically. "The so-called parliament of the Crimean Tatar people, the Mejlis (banned in Russia), which was financed by foreign NGOs, was prohibited, and accordingly, the problem as such was eliminated. The question of violating the rights of the Crimean Tatars was raised throughout the entire period when Crimea was a part of Ukraine, and it was due to the fact that after the repatriation the status of this people was much worse than of the bulk of the population. So it was then that the activities of various NGOs financed from abroad found response and support, " she explained.

"However, to date, foreign non-government funds simply do not have a news opportunity for their activities on the peninsula. The negative information on the violation of rights and freedoms of the Crimean Tatar population is published  mainly by the Ukrainian media, based on the data, for example, of the Amnesty International, the activities of which are impossible on the peninsula. And often these publications are associated with some sort of resentment that the Crimean-Tatar population on the peninsula really has nothing to complain about, and the Russian Federation has managed to create all the conditions in order to provide comfortable accommodation not only for Russians but also for representatives of other nationalities ", the analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza said.

The expert expressed an opinion that a unique situation has developed in relation to the national minorities in Crimea, within the framework of which all barriers - social, economic, ethnic - that could cause dissatisfaction with certain groups were eliminated. "This can be confirmed by the fact that in February last year, the representatives of the Crimean Tatar population of Crimea called on the UN General Assembly and the European Parliament to recognize the unification of the peninsula with Russia and, accordingly, to lift all the imposed sanctions," she said.

"That is, the NGOs that acted before simply have no one to defend in Crimea, and this is another factor that contributes to the progressive and planned development of a new region within the Russian Federation," Ekaterina Vinnik concluded.