1. W/S Activists marching with banner

2. M/S Activist chanting

3. M/S Activists carrying banner and chanting

4. M/S Man in crowd chanting

5. W/S Crowd marching with banner

6. M/S Police officer watching crowd, man singing over loudspeaker

7. M/S Crimean Tatar flags in crowd, man singing over loudspeaker

8. W/S Crowd gathered in Simferopol's main square, man speaking over loudspeaker

9. M/S People with Crimean Tatar flag in crowd, man speaking over loudspeaker

10. W/S Crowd gathered in Simferopol's main square

11. M/S Elderly man in crowd, man singing over loudspeaker

12. C/U Elderly man in crowd, man singing over loudspeaker

SCRIPT

Ukraine: Crimean Tatars want exile to end

Thousands of Crimean Tatars from across Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula marched through the streets of Simferopol to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the 1944 mass deportation of Crimean Tatars on Saturday. Mourning those who died during the forced deportations, Tatar activists began the rally by holding a minute of silence in the main square of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea's capital.

Later turning political, the protesters demanded state recognition of the deportation as an act of genocide, alongside the status of indigenous people to be applied to the Crimean Tatars. Also calling for the resignation of the head of the Crimean government, Anatoly Mogilev, the activists from the social-political organisation 'The Majilis of the Crimean Tatar People' say that authorities deny their rights and block them from occupying governmental positions.

Since 1996 the Crimean region has recognised May 18 as Deportation Memorial Day, the official memorial date of the 1944 forced mass deportation of Crimean Tartars. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin expelled the Crimean Tartar population to areas in the Urals, Siberia and Central Asia, accusing them of being collaborators with Nazi Germany during World War II. Between 20 to 46 percent of the Crimean Tatar population is estimated to have died after the deportation program began.

Crimea was granted status as an autonomous republic within Ukrainian borders on February 12, 1991, less than one year after the assertion of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic's state sovereignty in July 1990. As of 2009, the Ukrainian government estimated that some 265,000 Crimean Tatars have resettled in Ukraine following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Resettlement of Crimean Tatars has seen tensions arise following large influxes of Tatars returning to land since occupied by other ethnic groups.

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