RIA Novosti, Russia
March 23 2004
UKRAINE’S PARLIAMENT CONSIDERING REINSTITUTING DEPORTED PEOPLES’
RIGHTS
KIEV, March 23, 2004 (RIA Novosti) – On Tuesday, Ukraine’s parliament
passed a bill, in a first reading, re-instituting the rights of
people deported from Ukraine for ethnic reasons. The bill was
supported by 324 MPs, while 226 votes were necessary to pass the
document.
This government-sponsored bill defines deported persons’ status.
“The state guarantees that the deported persons, who will return to
the places where they had lived before being deported, should enjoy
Ukrainian nationals’ rights stipulated in the Constitution. The state
shall also ensure conditions for settling down, i.e. housing,
employment, education, and conditions for ethnic, cultural and
religious development,” reads the document.
Moreover, the bill says that the authorities must promote deported
persons’ return, their adaptation and integration into Ukrainian
society.
The bill is yet to be adopted in the second reading and signed into
law by the president.
More than 50,000 ethnic Germans were deported from the Crimea in
1941. Over 200,000 Tatars, some 38,000 Armenians, Bulgarians and
Greeks were ousted from the peninsula in 1944. They were deported to
Siberia, Central Asia or Kazakhstan. Around 260,000 Tatars and a few
thousand of people of a different ethnic origin have already returned
to the Crimea.