The Parliament of Estonia approved the Statement on recognition of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people by the Soviet regime in 1944 as an act of genocide. 83 deputies of the Riigikogu supported the Statement.
This was reported by the Crimea Platform and the Riigikogu.
“At the final vote, 83 members of the Riigikogu supported the adoption of the Statement of the Riigikogu ‘On Recognising the Mass Deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944 as an Act of Genocide’,” stated the press release.
The Riigikogu strongly condemned the extermination and mass deportation of Crimean Tatars from their homeland in the Crimean Peninsula to Central Asia, a tragic event organized by the totalitarian Soviet regime in May 1944.
“Around 200,000 Crimean Tatars were deported. Tens of thousands of them perished. The entire nation lost their homeland and was subjected to brutal Russification for decades. The prohibition to return to homeland was lifted only in November 1989,” the statement continued.
Estonia became the sixth country to recognize the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people as genocide.
This year marks 80 years since the Soviet regime committed genocide by forcibly deporting the Crimean Tatar population from the Crimean Peninsula.
Previously, the deportation was recognized as an act of genocide of the Crimean Tatar people by Ukraine in 2015, Latvia and Lithuania in 2019, Canada in 2022, and in 2024 by Poland.
