“The war started in Crimea, and it has to end there,” these words resonated deeply with many people who gathered in a large hall of the Danish parliament to listen to Conference: Unheard Voice of Crimea.
The annexation of Crimea by Russia had rather shallow and superficial coverage in the international media, and Denmark was not an exception. The timeline of the events in Ukraine in 2014 is still unclear for many people, yet it is essential to understand the context of the present war, for it began 9 years ago.
Crimean annexation was a vast open assault on international law by the Russian Federation, and it went without a proper response from the international community.
The democratic world let it happen and opted for silence, ignoring the significance of this violation as a blatant challenge to the entire world order.
The price for this ignorance was too high. It is only now that the World is slowly starting to listen and pay due attention, and we sincerely hope that it will lead to effective actions toward liberating the people of Crimea from russian occupation.
It was a great pleasure to give the stage to our outstanding speakers:
Sevgil Hayretdın Qızı Musaieva who talked about the long history of oppression of Crimean Tatars, the ongoing human rights violations in Crimea, and how important it is to de-occupy Crimea for the security of Europe, as russia has been turning the peninsula into a military base;
and Julia Zaitseva-Kirk who gave a firsthand account of the annexation, staged referendum, numerous pro-Ukrainian protests, russian soldiers, and armed pro-russian groups, as well as the powerless disappointment of Crimean residents.
We are immensely grateful to our partners Den Danske Helsinki-Komité for Menneskerettigheder and Det Udenrigspolitiske Selskab for collaboration in organizing this event, to Charlotte Flindt Pedersen for brilliant moderation, and to Kim Valentin for hosting us at Folketinget. Last but not least, we would like to thank the audience for attending the event.
We wholeheartedly hope that all the genuine voices from the occupied Crimea to destroyed regions in the East of Ukraine will be heard sooner rather than later.